Answer:  the very first time I felt I was an adult is when I had to pay full prize for a ticket to the movies.  I was 27.

The story:  I had graduated from high school at an age when most people hadn’t started.  I met my husband-to-be the first week at the university, and married him three years later at graduation day.  I actually still felt I was about 12 and looked very young and - yes - innocent (which I was). 

This was still a time - at least in my village - that there were kids’ tickets at the show, high school tickets through age 17, and adult.  The person told the price of the ticket himself - HE made the judgment I felt then - so every week I would go to the show and I was automatically given a high school price ticket. 

My kids were now in school.  As I still felt like I was very very young - and looked it - the high school price tickets still came thru the slot at the movies.  I wasn’t not going to look a gift horse in the mouth when we had little money!  But there came a day — and we all know the feeling of THAT day when the ticket seller unbelievably thought that I was "an adult" and said the adult price.  I still felt like a kid … and so it was a blow to the heart.  And so, at 27, I must have looked 18.  It was a crushing day, still remembered.  Did I suddenly "grow up"?  No.  But I felt I could no longer get by with feeling like I was a kid (a kid who had kids).  There was NO adult purchase afterwards that had the impact this day has had on me.  I remember it well. 

Mine was the Cadillac Fleetwood.  Also known as the land barge.  I had "arrived." I didn’t stay long. But I had arrived nonetheless. Twice actually.  After the first disaster ended I bought another one.

They were built like tanks.  I was twice rear-ended by trucks on a freeway and barely felt the impact. Despite the fact the rear-end was gone. I do miss them.  And the sense of "having arrived."

My first adult purchase was an all electric self-cleaning stove for my mother’s mother’s day present when I was 16. It was avocado green and it was a bit lower than usual. She was very short so every half inch less was appreciated. The second present was a Ford Maverick for my dad for father’s day, but that was 3 years later.

I earned all of the money by saving 75% of the babysitting money I had earned since I was 12 years old. When I was 15 I got an after school and weekend job at a Florist by using my mother’s social security number and lieing about my age. I also supplimented that income by making long distant patient transfers with the local ambulance companies.