Fake ID

As a student at a women’s college in a dry town, a fake ID was crucial to having a social life. Mine was more for the getting into bars than for the drinking once I was there, given that I waited until my sophomore year to have a single sip of alcohol (even after fighting cancer, I can’t imagine surviving the crushing guilt I would have felt if I had started drinking in high school, whether or not my parents caught me at it).

But at Wellesley, we generally had to go where the boys were – Fort Lauderdale being a little too far for the average Saturday night, we settled for the Crimson Grill, the Boathouse, the Spaghetti Club. On a good night, we’d hit the clubs on Landsdowne Street or on small backstreets near Chinatown, assuming I could convince my friends to pay the cover charge and spend the night dancing instead of standing around a bar, pretending to find electrical engineering fascinating so some 5’8” guy with a complex (his real ID claimed 5’11”) would buy our drinks.

Not one to tamper with state or federal documentation, I chose to break the law the old-fashioned way – by pretending to be someone I was not. Susan Gregory (names have been changed to protect my unwitting accomplice) had kindly passed on her old ID before she graduated, and it had ventured into Boston in the purses of several other minors before making its way to me. She had two inches and four years on me, but she was blonde with green eyes, and most bouncers only expected a half-hearted stab at accuracy (same gender would suffice at the Grill.) Always the overachiever, I nevertheless memorized her birth year (1969) and sign (Capricorn) as well as her street address in Georgia. I was even confident that I could produce a reasonable facsimile of her signature, should anyone ask.

It’s rare to get carded in New York, at least as long as you avoid the bars around NYU. But tonight, dropping by Arlene’s Grocery on the Lower East Side to check out live Rock’n’Roll Karaoke (a subculture that merits its own blog entry some other time) with some girlfriends, the bouncer stopped us and asked to see ID. “You look like a whole different person,” he said, holding the picture up while squinting at my face.

“Oh, the hair,” I said. “Yeah, it’s a pretty big change. What do you think?”

“Looks good. But has Momma seen it yet?”

“She likes it better this way,” I assured him, as we laughed and walked inside to the strains of Aaron from New Jersey wailing “Welcome to the Jungle.”

Sometimes I forget that this is what I look like now. The reflection in the mirror no longer takes me by surprise, but when I look at group photos, I still look for the girl with the shoulder-length blonde hair. At a recent global conference for work, I had to reintroduce myself to several people with whom I talk on the phone regularly, but who had not seen me in person for a few months.

At least the height, eye color and face shape on my ID was convincing enough to get me past the doors tonight, and I think I can probably manage my zodiac sign (which is what, you ask? Cancer. Of course.) But I may start practicing my signature again, just to be safe.