Could It Be? Is It Me?

In this day and age of identity theft, one of the things I do to protect myself is instead of signing the back of my credit card, I have written *CHECK ID*. Even so, I would fathom to guess my ID is checked 2% of the time.

Yesterday, I went to get something to eat. Dan had the day off, and we were out of Lean Cuisine. I was feeling kind of lazy, so I went down the street to the McDonald’s drive through. I ordered my two cheeseburgers, and when pulled to the first window to pay, I handed the girl my bank card.

She was a small girl. I would guess she was still in high school, and being that the time was 2:30-ish, she may have just gotten out of school and rushed to her job. She looked at my card and rapidly asked me, “May I see your ID? Is it ok if I look at your ID? Do you want me to check your ID or are you ok?” She chuckled nervously at the end of her rapid firing of questions.

I smiled at her, thinking of how many times I was yelled at while working in retail or banking, and wondering if she had a similar experience where someone yelled at her for checking ID and that was making her a little gun shy to ask for my ID. So, as I handed her my driver’s license, I said to her, “I know it’s me. Do you know it’s me?”

“I don’t know it’s you,” she replied with a nervous twitter.

“That’s why it’s on there.” I said, and I smiled again. She gave a nervous giggle again, and thanked me. I pulled forward to get my food. All in all, I think I got the point across without being an asshole about it.

I got to thinking about this incident as I ate my lunch. Later, when I called Dan, I told him about my exchange with the drive-thru girl. I said to him, “I know people would yell at me in the bank when I asked them to verify who they were with an ID. But you know, if I wrote *CHECK ID* on my card, and then yelled at you about checking my ID, I would really start to wonder if maybe the name on the card wasn’t really you.” The problem is, too many people are assholes about showing their ID. When I was banking, customers that would come into the branch for years would yell about how I was checking their ID when they had been with the bank since it opened in 1972, and how dare I! I mean, the nerve. Doesn’t everyone know who they are?

Well, sir or madam, if I am brand new to the bank, or you have been using the ATM since 1999 when they were put in, but only come into the branch occasionally, or you normally frequent another branch, then I don’t know who you are. I will need to see your ID. Anytime someone in retail asks to see your ID, you should just show it to them and don’t make an ass of yourself. Asking for an ID is for your own protection!

After I ate my lunch, I went to the Starbucks to get my daily hot chocolate and call Dan on the phone. In a stroke of irony, as I was paying for my drink, the cashier said, “It says *CHECK ID* but I know who you are, so I won’t worry about that.”