Monday: the look. Wednesday: 12 items. Friday: Oma, in nine words.

Monday: the look. Wednesday: 12 items. Friday: Oma, in nine words.

"A 12-year-old looked 12. They don't anymore."

Then I asked her when she got her first ID card.

"I don't remember."
"You don't remember?"
"After school, maybe. Not as a child. Children didn't have one."
"Today a baby can have one, Oma."
"Then what does it still prove?"

She's 79 and she asked the question the whole industry is walking around.

An ID used to arrive when you grew up. The document itself was the signal. Now it arrives at birth, so it signals nothing — it has to be read.

And once a thing has to be read, somebody decides how much of it to read.