KIRLAND: False identification

I wish a warm goodbye to all you lucky students heading to tropical, exotic locations this spring break. It must be nice to know that once you ace your midterms – I hope – you can break out the bikinis, Speedos, sunglasses, straw hats and SPF 30. Have fun taking surf lessons, getting a tan that doesn’t come in a can or starring in the ‘Spring Break 2009’ edition of ‘Girls Gone Wild.’ My only request is that you keep the rest of us back in the northern half of the United States in mind – especially those of us heading to the always-warm beach town of Albany, N.Y. to watch our Terriers try to make the NCAA tournament for once.

I am thrilled – I really am – to be busing to Albany with all 15 dedicated Boston University basketball fans, the band and the dance team. I’m not at all jealous that my classmates are heading to beautiful locations, most of which are so extraordinary and foreign that I can’t pronounce their names. But I am jealous of one thing – that my classmates who are under 21 years old get to make full use of their all-inclusive travel packages in other countries.

I am growing tired of kids my age having to use fake identification here in America. Every spring break since I was a junior in high school, I am reminded how painfully hilarious using false identification can be. The only thing that is more comical than using a fake ID is buying one – not that I know from experience. Let’s just say I have a friend who had to meet an illegal immigrant – who was in a minivan with her two children – in an alley of a pretty sketchy neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side to get his ID. My friend is lucky to be alive.

Still, my friend’s dangerous journey to the south side of Chicago was worth it because he doesn’t have to use a real ID with someone else’s picture. These IDs produce entertaining results. It’s great when one of your female friends – a blonde, fair-skinned, tall and thin knockout – shows you her ‘really good’ ID that previously belonged to Delores VonFranker – a 35-year-old red-haired organ donor, weighing in at an even 250 pounds at a height of 4 feet 11 inches. For some reason, your response must always be, ‘Oh, wow. That looks great. No way you won’t get into this bar.’

The only time you become more confident that your friend’s terrible fake ID will work is when you need that friend to get alcohol for you. So what if the person who made your friend’s ID accidentally airbrushed his picture so that your friend went from looking like Denzel Washington to Billy Crystal? You assure him that the salesman probably won’t even ask for ID because he looks like he could be 30, and he is the most mature friend you have. ‘Just don’t look nervous,’ you tell him. ‘Just make sure you are ready if he asks you any questions.’

It’s ridiculous that everyone thinks that knowing all the information on your fake will assure that it works. People start memorizing things like the year they would have graduated high school, the year they would have graduated junior high and even the year they would have been potty trained. As long as you know those things and your fake zip code, nothing can go wrong. The first thing a bouncer or alcohol salesman will ask if they want to test if you are 21 is the year of the last time you wet your bed and what U.S. postal zip code it occurred in.

The problem is that no matter what zip code you’re in from the summer after you graduate high school until you turn 21, you need some sort of false identification. No American youth wants to miss out on what the rest of the young men and women his age are entitled to around the world. In America, I could drive when I turned 16 years old, and, at 18, I could vote, die for my country and buy a shotgun in Florida if I wanted one. However, I have to – I mean my friend has to – use a fake ID to buy alcohol.

Thankfully, I am soon heading to a warm, foreign destination where I am comfortably above the required drinking age. I’ll show them my passport, smile and say, ‘Gimme a local brew, barman!’ The barman will grin back as if to say, ‘This crazy American must be happy that he can drink legally here.’ Oh, wait. I’m going to Albany. I don’t think there are any poolside bars that I can walk up to in my Speedo and order a local brew. I guess I’ll just have to see if Delores VonFranker wouldn’t mind stopping at the local convenience store.