Fake IDs I've Seen, Part 2

As you may remember, I was a bouncer for a while in college. I have seen some pretty stellar fake IDs, but a few stories really stick out in my mind as being particularly ridiculous, and I am here to tell you of another brief encounter I had with an awesomely dense patron...

I was working one night at the bar and it wasn't all that busy. I would have been extraordinarily bored were it not for a group of my friends joining me for some fun. I was on the verge of being cut due to the lack of crowd, but we got a mini rush of about 15 people, and it was just enough to keep me on for a while longer. I languished at the idea of staying on, but my compatriots kept me entertained.

The door swung open and a rather young looking gentleman entered the establishment. My friends turned away briefly, knowing that I had to put my "bouncer face" on (sort of like a "poker face", but with less Lady Gaga). I wish they hadn't turned away though, for what happened next was something you couldn't have scripted better.

The fellow handed me "his" ID and I took a look at it. I immediately giggled, handed the card back to him, and said I wasn't going to let him in.

At this point, I should say (as I said in the previous article), that the bar I worked at was not known for its strict carding policy. If it looked remotely like you, we were going to let you in on most nights. I was good at spotting fakes, but it was mostly because I saw so many on any given night. It was a lot of fun getting to refuse people if we didn't need the patronage, but it was an infrequent joy.

The young chap stared at me blankly for a sec, looking bewildered. He seemed to be absolutely flabbergasted I didn't let him in, especially considering the crowd was small and I was looking to get cut soon (not that he knew that). He looked at me, asked me why I wasn't going to let him in. I responded simply, "Because that's not you on the ID."

This is the point where every person puts forth their best, "Yes, that is actually me!" argument, but it rarely works. He was no different, telling me it was him on the ID. I reiterated that it wasn't, he insisted it was. I then put a rest to the altercation with this:

"No, you're not Jim Spencer, this is!"

I proceeded to turn my friend around who was standing next to me (the same friend from the fishbowl race). Confronted with the person on the ID he did not legally procure, the young man bolted from the bar with almost cartoonish quickness, leaving a veritable dust cloud behind. My friend shrugged, stating he had lost his ID a couple weeks prior and obviously it had been found. We all laughed pretty heartily, as not only did I know the person on the kid's fake ID, but he was standing next to me. Sometimes Madison just isn't big enough.

Fake IDs I've Seen (part 1)

While I was going to college, I (like so many other college students) worked in bars for a few years for some income. While I did bartend for a short amount of time, I was mostly a bouncer for around 4 years of experience (a little over 2 years at one bar and a little over 1.5 years at another, though some of that I was working at both). Considering one of those bars was a pretty well established underage bar, I saw a lot of fakes. While most of them were pretty forgettable, there are a few incidents that definitely stick out in my memory. I will recount one of these tales for you right now, with more to come.

I was at the bar (I won't say the name to protect the bar), guarding the door like a good bouncer should. Now, the general rule of thumb for the bar was if it was busy and we didn't need the numbers, get hard on IDs; if it was sort of dead, be a little more lax. Well, the bar wasn't very full on a Saturday night, so I was trying to get our numbers up by being more lenient with my checking. A group of four girls came up to the door, all of which were pretty clearly underage. I braced myself for the onslaught of bad fakes, and ended up with something I could never have braced myself for.

Now, most girls will try to flirt with the bouncer in order to get into a bar. While this will work sometimes, it didn't with me. That doesn't mean I wouldn't let you in if you flirted with me, but it wasn't because you flirted with me you got in. Most of the time I was trying to make more money (we got a share of the tips, you see) or I just didn't care that much. Another thing that people will try to do (and this is a good bit of advice for underagers) is put a legitimate ID at the front and lump the fakes in the middle, bookending with another legit person in the back of the group. This works pretty well too, but if you have an entire group of less than 21 year olds, you can't bookend very well.

Back to the group of girls: the first three handed me pretty obviously fake IDs. They were all out of state and weren't plausible, either because of the bad picture or just terrible fake qualities of the ID itself. I rolled my eyes at the cards, even asked a couple where they got them and how much they payed. I was going to let all of them in until I got to the fourth girl. She handed me her ID and I looked at it. I then had the following conversation with her:

Me: I can't let you in with this.

Girl: (looking confusedly at her friends) Why? It's me! [standard response]

Me: No, it's not. I can't let you in.

Girl: It's actually me! I have a second form. (pulls out a student ID matching the license)

Me: I know this isn't you and that means I can't let you in.

(Now her friends are really confused because a second ago I made fun of their fakes)

Girl: But it's actually me! See I have this second form! Why do you think it isn't me?

Me: (a bit annoyed now) Because if this is you (holding up the ID), that means I dated you four years ago, and I don't seem to remember that!

Girl: (stunned) Uh, wha-... What?

Me: Tanya Fay Risley (named changed to protect the innocent) from Edina, MN (also not true). She goes to grad school in South Dakota now for Physical Therapy (grad school true, nothing else). I've been to her house and met her parents.

Girl: (stunned silence)

Me: I can let a lot of things slide, but this isn't one of them. Bye.

(Girl and her friends walk out of the bar with weird looks on their faces.)

That's right, she handed me an ID of an ex-girlfriend from my sophomore year of college. I'm okay with most fakes, but that I just couldn't let through. The looks on the girls' faces after letting in three fakes and then stopping the fourth were pretty priceless. Sometimes I really liked that job.