4

You End Up Having A Go-To Story For Every Situation

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So, you have your fake ID. You've reached the point in the myth of your life where you go from awkward teen to rad teen (the stage that comes just before evolving into an awkward adult), and you're ready to show off your newfound prowess. But what do you do when people call bullshit on you? What do you do when someone looks you up and down and thinks that you're a lie dressed in an asshole costume? You start making things up.

Since my fake ID said that I was from across the state, I had planned to say that I was on a weekend trip to the town. Before this could take place, my fight-or-flight meter exploded, and I burst off into the night, hoping that no one would ever see me again. Lying has always been some kind of shameful improv game, but I'm far better at it when the prompt is "The scene is a drive-thru, and you are turning into a shark" than if the audience (some solemn guy in a black T-shirt) throws out, "The scene is that you're in front of Murphy's Pub, and you're about to get a misdemeanor."

3

At Some Point, You Can't Travel With The Same Friends Anymore

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Aside from receiving a copy of the Ring Bearer's ID, nothing tips off a bouncer that something is amiss faster than finding age discrepancies among a group of friends. That doesn't mean finding out that the person standing in front of you is actually an immortal Sluggoth, arising to doom the world and get totally wasted while doing it, bro. This means finding out, as a bouncer, that the group standing in front of you is made up of four 21-year-olds and one 28-year-old that suspiciously looks like he's trying to unwind after finals. That is what happens when people finally age into legitimate, government-approved drinking. They toss their fakes and stick to the real thing. Sorry, youngest person in the group! I hope your goatee works out for you.

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A group of people with fake IDs is meant to give off the impression "Nothing to see here, folks. Just a couple of friends, all between 21 and 26, going out for some drinks. Definitely not a group of people who think that entering a bar confidently means not looking the bouncer in the eye and passing the time with useless, vaguely adulty conversation." A stray 21-year-old, freed from the binds of trying to "keep it cool," ruins this setup.

The people I talked to attempted to fix this problem by coming to the bar in waves. The person still using their fake ID would show up first, a few minutes before the rest of the group showed up. That way, instead of sticking out in the crowd, the only problem that the person with the fake ID encounters is the illusion that they don't have any friends. It's what Alan Grant described in Jurassic Park when he talked about the patterns of raptors. On that note, my article "5 Ways That Jurassic Park Is Secretly About Chug! Chug! Chug!" should be out next week.

2

Some Places Are Easier To Fool Than Others

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When you get a fake ID, you're not going to exclusively go to bars. You have to eat sometimes, and since Taco Tuesday only takes place on 14.285 percent of the days that it should, you're going to be flashing that fake ID around in restaurants every once in a while. And, sometimes, you're going to be way too snuggled into a pair of sweatpants to even think about interacting with others, much less others who have recently taken showers. You're going to try to get your alcohol from a gas station or a liquor store. But not all places that sell drinks are created equal. There is a definite hierarchy when it comes to the ease of using a fake ID.

The consensus that I took from turning a group's fun night into a Q&A was that bars are the easiest place to slip into with a fake. Bars are based around getting people in and out as smoothly as possible and gaining enough clientele to reach the point just before the grinding of smushed-together bodies creates a fire hazard. And no one goes to various bars with a fake ID to just stand around without drinking. That's some sociopathic shit. They go to get trashed in public a few years before Congress allows. When bars need business or are too busy for the bouncers to care, they're more likely to let in the people who have less-than-stellar IDs.

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Restaurants are a little more likely to balk at your tiny piece of fib paper, as, while they're still in perpetual movement and need people to buy their shit, their standards are less relaxed. The second-hardest place to use them is at a gas station, a situation that often calls for distraction. Amanda would begin talking to the cashier long before she made her purchase. That way, the cashier wouldn't be focused on the standard procedure of trying to uphold the law. They'd be too busy dealing with sudden companionship.

1

Once You Get A Real ID, You're Screwed

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I never got far enough into a life of crime and debauchery to have to worry about what would happen when I turned 21. As it turns out, I probably wouldn't have handled that very well either, because actually using your real name, age, and biography presents a few glaring issues when taken in by the people you've been drinking with for years. This first problem is HOLY SHIT. YOU'VE BEEN LYING FOR, LIKE, FOREVER.

As I discussed bars with the group who decided that it would be worthwhile to spend their Saturday night talking to a loud guy who produced a notepad from his pocket within minutes of meeting them, I heard a few possible destinations get shot down. Usually, people stop going to bars for two reasons. The first is that the bar doesn't fit their social standards. The second is that their social standards don't fit the policies of the bar. The group revealed that there was a third reason: You've been using an alias since you were 19, and people are going to get freaked out when you finally reveal yourself.

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Once you discover the bars that are lax about checking for fake IDs, you're going to spend a lot of time at them. So, when 28-year-old Martha from Illinois reveals that she is actually 21-year-old Amanda from Georgia, there will be mixed feelings all around. The tales of bar owners revealing that they were chill about the whole thing is in the minority. Sporadically, it just depends on how their night is going when it comes to how they want to deal with you, but reporting your use of a fake ID can lead to you getting anything from a fine to jail time.

It would be nice if every bar owner responded to fake IDs in the same way that the worst anime villains respond to finding a worthy opponent, saying, "Ah, I respect you, as you have presented me with the challenge that I so longed for." Sadly, we live in a world where someone sees that they've been duped, realizes that the duping could've led to legal problems, and gets mad about it. They won't even have the decency to challenge you to a ninja battle before kicking you out of their establishment forever. Fucking jerks.

So, the group moved on to new bars where no one knew them by the name on their fake IDs. They were putting aside their youthful adventures and shifting into the next step in their ... well, scratch that. Who am I kidding? They were just interested in finding another spot to drink.

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