I sat at my lunch table, casually talking and joking with my friends. There were about ten minutes left to go in the thirty-minute lunch break, so I was just about finished. My vice principal walked up our table and made eye contact with me. I thought that this was a somewhat strange turn of events, as he hates me and I couldn’t imagine why he’d be initiating conversation with me. He stared me down.

“Ben, do you intend to drive tonight?” he said, with arrogance and a false sense of assumed power in his voice.

I was somewhat confused – perhaps I cut him off the other day and he was irate?

“Well, uh, I don’t know, maybe,” I said.

“If you get pulled over, what is the first thing the officer would ask for?” he asked.

“Uh, why am I getting pulled over?” This conversation was taking a suspicious turn.

“It doesn’t matter, what would the officer want to see?”

Now, I’ve seen my fair share of cop shows on TV, and I’m fully aware the officer would want to see my license and vehicle registration, so I said as much. He asked to see my license.

I burst out in to laughter. Several days prior, I had wanted to attend a horror movie that had just been released with a few friends – unfortunately, the minimum age was 17, and I was just 16. Rather than obey rules and conform, I did what came naturally to my thought process – I made a fake ID. It worked beautifully – in fact, someone who carded me at the movie actually apologized for it and said it was just company policy (I forgave him).

Word of this had been circulating around the school, and I got comments pretty frequently about it earlier in the day. I assumed my vice principal was attempting to get me to pull out the fake ID, but alas, I’m far smarter than that. I took out my real ID, and laid it on the table. He looked quite confused. He put his hand in to his pocket and removed my fake ID.

The color in my face disappeared instantly.

“How did you get that?!” I stammered.

“You dropped it on the floor…I was bringing it back to you. Why do you have two?”

Oh, damn it. At that moment, I hated him more than I’ve hated anyone in a very long time. Realizing I was essentially screwed, I explained to him the story of getting in to the movie.

“Oh, it’s a FAKE ID? I thought it was just your old one…”

God damn it. This wasn’t fair, not even a little bit.

He laughed and shook his head. “Looks like it’s time to give the police chief a call.”

“Give me my real ID back – you have no right to confiscate it.” I spoke firmly, staring him down.

“You’ll get it back by the end of the day,” he chuckled.”

“I’m American, I shouldn’t have to wait,” I said defiantly.

“Kid, you’re digging yourself into a hole.”