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I Handed My Fake I.D. to TSA

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I like to think that I’m generally the type of girl that has her shit together. I go to class (usually), I make it back home (someone’s home) even after the drunkest of nights, and I have yet to be arrested. However, I can be a little scatter-brained and this has, at times, been known to get me into trouble. This was one of those times.

I had just spent an entire weekend visiting my long distance boyfriend at his college half way across the country. It was a weekend filled with sex, booze, and the desire to show everyone how much harder we go at my own college. By the time I had to hop on a flight to go back to school after my mini-vacation I had a hangover that seemed like it would last forever. I wasn’t totally convinced that I wasn’t going to die from some kind of internal bleeding to my brain. That in combination with the sadness of leaving my boyfriend behind left me even more scatter-brained and delirious than usual.

Fast forward to standing in line for security at the airport. I was the only one in line at the dinky little airport so I pull my wallet out immediately and hand the I.D. sitting in the center pocket to the TSA woman. As I’m standing there waiting for her to let me through I see her staring at my horizontal I.D. … but I was eighteen and 100 percent positive that I had a vertical I.D. and that I was not from Pennsylvania.

I suddenly remember that I had put my real I.D. in the back of my wallet to hide it in case any bouncers were looking when I was fishing out my fake and put my fake I.D. in the front. I realized quickly that TSA would probably not fall for the same thing that bouncers do and I probably couldn’t just cry to make it go away. So instead I did the only logical thing I could think of — I ripped the I.D. out of her hand and tried to come up with some explanation.

“I’m so sorry that was my sister’s I.D., I just realized I have her wallet and she must have left it in here when she let me borrow it,” I said with my most adorable, innocent smile plastered on my face and handed her my real I.D. Clearly I had not grabbed it back in time for her not to have read my fake because, sounding annoyed, she responded, “You and your sister have the same name?” I muttered “yup,” like it was just a casual thing that my imaginary sister and I have the same name.

Her eyes narrowed and I knew she didn’t believe me for a second but by some miracle, she just let me through. Even as I was getting on the plane I still was just waiting to be arrested and felt even more like I was going to vom. Luckily, none of the above happened.

I like to think that this woman remembers what it was like to be in college and didn’t want to get me in trouble but it’s far more likely that I just wasn’t worth the paperwork she would have to fill out if she did anything about the situation. However, had this gone any different I could have been in a lot of trouble, and I don’t think I look good in orange or would do well in a federal prison.

Life lesson: it’s probably more important to keep your fake away from TSA than it is to keep your real I.D. from bouncers.

Image via Shutterstock

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shortbutnotsweet

Just a sassy Masshole turned sorority girl that loves wine almost as much as she loves her cats. After two years as recruitment chair she has the uncontrollable desire to critique everything you do. Trying to figure out the next move after four years in college as HBIC.

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