Collegiate Times

Now don?t think I?m trying to sound like the scolding father wagging his finger at you here but I have to say that fake IDs, in all of their forms and manifestations, are poor.

Yes, I am 21 years old and yes, the only thing I can?t do because of legal age restrictions is rent a car, but even when I was under 21, I didn?t have a fake ID. This was for two reasons: one, because I didn?t see a need for one and, two, because if I were to get one, it would?ve looked ridiculous.

This is because, in reality, all fake IDs, even the most elaborately conceived, are ridiculous. For example, I knew a guy who had a fake ID that included his real picture on a driver?s license with a different name. It looked legit if you looked at it in his wallet, but if you took it out, his picture would fall off and the owner?s picture would be revealed. It was clever but wholly ineffective.

I knew another guy who had a fake ID that belonged to some older friend he knew that actually kind of looked like him. The only problem is that when a bouncer checked the ID, it said he was 26 and no matter how much my 20-year-old friend looked like the guy in the picture, not many bouncers were really going to believe that he was 26. Most fake IDs also seem to be used regardless of some variety of major contradiction that, if the bouncer recognizes it, will instantly prove that the user is not who the ID says they are.

For example, your 18-year-old friend with a name like Patrick O?Shaughnessy, a pale skinny kid with curly red hair, will most likely have a fake ID picturing a tan guy with slick black hair whose name is Giovanni Del Roma. Your friend who?s 5 feet tall and weighs 100 pounds will have the ID that says he?s 6 foot, 2 inches and a weighs a burly 185. These people will never get let into a bar unless the bouncer is blind, friends with the fake ID user or non-existent. Not only do fake IDs all look ridiculous, but they?re also rather unnecessary, especially in a town like Blacksburg, where underage people can get things that they can?t legally have rather easily.

Take alcohol, for example. If you can?t think of a place to get alcohol, other than a bar, then you might need to consider leaving your dorm room.

Have you been outside after the hour of 9pm on a Friday? Have you seen the surplus of empty red cups on the lawn of every apartment complex on Saturday at 10am? Those weren?t strategically placed there just to confuse you. Those were filled with alcohol last night, and probably thrown there by someone younger than you. Even now, as you read this, someone you know is probably drinking alcohol somewhere.

If you want to drink and you?re underage, you can do that. For the sake of legality, I?m not going to suggest that you do that, but if you want to, you most certainly can in this town, and probably everywhere else. Some people want to drink in public though, at bars and clubs and places like that, but these people have probably never been to those places.

Being in a bar isn?t all that it?s cracked up to be. I mean, yeah, I go to them, but there are a lot of negative aspects attached to bar-going.

For instance, you can?t choose your own music and after hearing 200 drunk Def Leppard fans shout ?Pour Some Sugar On Me? for the third time in an hour-long span, the words tend to lose all meaning. You also experience moderate groping every time you decide to move anywhere in the bar. Worst of all, drinks are expensive and easily spilled.

So don?t get a fake ID. You really don?t need one, especially in a town whose slogan is ?A drinking town with a football problem.?