453

Big Red
Posted on March 9, 2015 by David M Willis

453 thoughts on “Big Red”

  1. An Average Loser

    Yay, Billie

    1. Wire Segal

      Jen aside must have gotten tripped up by daylight savings.

      Yay, Billie! People think you’re old!

      1. L33tmaster

        lol thank god for crows feet.
        it funny cause true.

      2. Plasma Mongoose

        Billie’s a teenager but already she’s hitting the wall…

        1. Lone Wolf

          Heavy substance abuse and stress can really take their toll on a body.

        2. Lord Geovanni

          PM i approve of that gravatar go into diamond making business what that young lady

        3. Plasma Mongoose

          That’s a good point, I wonder if she can indeed make precious metals and stones as well as money, as far as I’m aware she hasn’t used her powers in that way but then again, I have only seen about 30 odd chapters of Boku no Hero Academia so far…

        4. NotFred

          I just looked at it. Did you ever heard about a comic called “Magellan”?

        5. Plasma Mongoose

          No I haven’t but I google-searched and give it a try.

        6. Plasma Mongoose

          I have been archive binging on Magellan for an hour so far and it looks like I will be adding this to my webcomic favourites list.

        7. Opus the Poet

          [wring hands]Yeeessss!!![/wring hands]

        8. NotFred

          Glad to hear that 🙂

          I just finished reading chapter 28 of Academia 🙂 Thank you for once again a good tip.

          About Magellan’s author Grace, not that it matters in relation to her as an artist but since it was a big positive step for her and that she found important to share it with her readers I will drag your attention to this blog entry.

        9. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          Maybe that “crows’ feet” comment will be the start of Billie’s sobering up…. or maybe not. Who knows? Only Willis I guess. 🙂

          On another note…geez, that store assistant looks like ME! With the perma-stubble and very little hair up top. (Although to be fair, he has significantly more scalp coverage than I do)

      3. Jen Aside

        =/

        Do I REALLY have to come back every day I don’t post to reiterate that I don’t post if I genuinely don’t have something to say? I mean, if anything, DST “tripped me up” by making me want to go to bed super early (yet not letting me actually fall asleep).

        1. Jen Aside

          (possibly, since the reply is so removed from the OP by this point)

    2. RAZ

      True to life. Asian do look younger. I get STILL get carded even after 10 years.

      1. Trumpty trump trump

        Asians look young for a while, then they age like 40 years in one night.

      2. Beckett

        Of course in this case she really is underage, so it makes sense that she’d get carded.

    3. vic

      wath doe she meen by crow´s feet ?

  2. LiaHansen

    Well that’s just rude regardless of her real age

    1. T Campbell

      Yeah, not for nothing, but I don’t think this clerk has much of a future in sales if he concludes his store conversations with lines like “I really suspected you of breaking the law just now. Good thing your eyes are so hideously aged! Thank you, come again!”

      1. Doctor_Who

        I might do that if I was actually sure they were underage but couldn’t prove it. I may not have been able to stop them buying booze, but at least I can say they won’t enjoy their evening too much.

        1. Tommy Bologna

          Imply even harder by having a mirror with “This is what a liar looks like.” When they get up to the register. Don’t even have to know what they’re lying about, it just works every time.

        2. Rycan

          I’d love to see hidden camera footage of the reaction on teenagers’ faces.

        3. All-Purpose Guru

          Burden of proof isn’t on the clerk, it’s on the customer. I can NOT sell to anyone I damn well like and my manager will back me up 100%. If I even think an ID is fake I don’t sell. Period. If I fuck up even once, I’m out of a job. Not gonna fuck up.

          The whole “can’t prove it, gotta sell it” is not working conditions I’m willing to put up with. Not when jail time is involved.

      2. Ace

        Perhaps he should consider a career in ninjadom.

    2. NotFred

      “Those aren’t crow’s feet, they are laugh lines.”
      “Honey, nothing is THAT funny”

  3. Seerow

    Crow’s Feet?

    1. Maveric1984

      Wrinkles around the eyes. Not something a typical 18 year old will have

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        Crow’s feet are all too common features with people who play teenage characters.

        1. Foxhack

          And balding.

        2. K^2

          I started losing my hair early. Got me into some places without being carded back when I was 19. By the time I was actually 21, I barely had to take my ID out.

        3. Kryss LaBryn

          My husband started having clerks ask him if he wanted to use the senior’s discount in his mid-forties.

          The downside of looking older than you are…

        4. Opus the Poet

          That’s funny, I don’t recall being married to you… <sob!> it’s true, I got my first unsolicited Senior Discount at 37! I look so mature…<sob!>

        5. gwalla

          Meanwhile I’ve got gray hairs coming in and I still get carded (if I’ve shaved that morning).

        6. Sky

          I have sections/patches of my hair that started coming in completely white at the ripe old age of 20. <_<

        7. Halloween Jack

          Yeah, I was in much the same boat–hair started thinning out around 20-21, and even before then, I could sometimes get served without getting carded, even in a college town. Of course, that was way back when the drinking age had just been raised back up to 21, and not even in all states at first. By the time I had a brief foray into retail sales clerking several years later, we were asked to card everyone who looked below 25, and boy howdy were there some upset customers over that. (One yelled at me, “How could I be underage? I have children!” To my credit, I did not laugh in her face.)

          I understand that the current “We Card Hard” era is due almost entirely to local Scout Explorer troops affiliated with the police running stings on convenience stores by using prematurely-grown-up-looking people like us, who look like 20-going-on-35.

        8. Seamus MacLeod

          I went in the opposite direction; I had shoulder-length hair and a beard by the first semester at Uni. It’s really about how you carry yourself. I never got carded much until after I turned 21 and started shaving again.

        9. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          Hi there! I’m a guy who genuinely started going bald at 14. 😀

          And I was being mistaken for adult (18) at the age of 11.

          ELEVEN.

          Yeah, seriously.

        10. Marisa Mockery

          You must be hella tall. My sister got hit on by college kids when she was 13 for the same reason. My mom had to teach her to say “Hi! I’m Sarah and I’m thirteen!” and they’d skulk away XD

        11. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          No really, I’m just average height (5’10”), although I did finish growing pretty early in my teens after a long early growth spurt.

          It didn’t help that I also hit puberty pretty early, so my voice broke and I started developing body hair when I was 10 and I was shaving a full beard by 13. xD

        12. Deanatay

          Jennifer Yunru Billingsworth is not a teenager – but, she plays one in web comics.

      2. Barf Ninjason

        Yeah, almost no one who’s 18 has those… I totally used to look for crow’s feet when deciding whether or not to card people way back when I had to card people. All I think is that either this guy is trying to goad Billie into angridentally ‘fessing up, or that all that alcobooze is hitting her really hard.

        1. Rowen Morland

          The trick to having crow’s feet at 18 is constant bitterness.

        2. Vert

          It’s the booze. Constant drinking does terrible things to your skin.

        3. Halloween Jack

          Yep. It’s not just gin blossoms.

        4. 3oranges

          If we think Billie is too young for them, should we assume that’s what he means? Have we ever seen her with her shoes off?

          I am just asking the questions that need to be asked.

        5. John

          Yes.

        6. Gigafreak

          I’m Chinese, and nearly 30, and I don’t have crow’s feet– unless it counts when I squint my eyes to make the skin scrunch up on purpose?

          I’m told that Asian people’s faces age very slowly, which would certainly explain that. (The exact words were something like “you’re Asian, you don’t even age.”)

          …Either Billie’s been treating her body like shit for a lot longer than initially expected, or she and her parents drew the short straw in the genetic lottery.

        7. Kamino Neko

          I’m white and pushing 40, and I don’t have crow’s feet, either. (It’d be the streaks of grey that prompted someone not to bother carding me.)

        8. Yet_One_More_Idiot

          I’m white and even when I was in my teens, I never got asked for ID to prove I was an adult. In fact other way around, I had to provide ID to prove that I was still eligible for *child rates*. When I was 11.

          Sometimes, genetics just suck ass.

        9. Sailor_Arashi

          Native American here, 39, no crow’s feet, and still get carded.

          I lucked out and got the “looks younger than they are” part of my heritage rather than the “looks older than the bones of the earth” part.

        10. Marisa Mockery

          Betting on the former. She’s been drinking at least since high school.

        11. Kryss LaBryn

          When I was a clerk in a gas station back in the late Nineties, when young people came in for smokes without ID, we’d ask them who Remington Steele was. If they didn’t know, sorry; too young for smokes. Nobody argued.

          Then Pierce Brosnan played Bond and everyone knew him. Drat.

        12. OmegaDez

          I’m 38. I have absolutely NEVER heard of Remington Steele.

        13. Kryss LaBryn

          Then you were obviously too young to buy smokes in 1997. 😉

        14. Airyu

          My mom would have been 31 in 1997, and I just asked her and she has no idea who/what is Remington Steele.

        15. HMRC4EVR

          You do have great taste in TV shows though

        16. Rycan

          Well, this IS Billie we’re talking about – she may just trip up over that after all.

    2. jeffepp

      A sign of dissipation.

  4. Maveric1984

    I assume it’s actually her middle name though, so that it’s easier to remember

    1. John

      It is.

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        For some reason I keep thinking that her middle name was Yahwei.

        1. LiaHansen

          Billie as reincarnated Christ headcanon accepted

        2. Plasma Mongoose

          “Drink this wine to remember me by and because it represents my blood which are both high in alcohol content…”

        3. Bill

          From “The Gospel of Carol”, another comic I somehow stumbled across because of here.

        4. Plasma Mongoose

          If a Catholic is allergic to communion wafers and/or wine, does that make them heretics?

        5. hof1991

          Wine is optional and most parishes have non-gluten or rice options on wafers if asked. Though some are dicks about it.

        6. Rycan

          It wouldn’t surprise me to learn YHWH was your daddy if you have a blood alcohol content of 9%, yet are still alive.

        7. Maveric1984

          Yahwei or the Highway

        8. Plasma Mongoose

          …to Hell!

  5. Tunaro

    Ouch.

  6. Yotomoe

    As someone who goes to college I’d argue that 18 year olds and 20 + year olds don’t look very different. At least not in the face so much as disposition.

    1. Maveric1984

      I find that I (as a 31 year old guy) get carded more when I buy beer, than when I get whiskey. Probably because my usual order, a Manhattan, is kind of an “old man” drink

      1. JustCheetoDust

        In my case that didn’t work for White Russians. All I got were clumsy references to The Big Lebowski and a request for ID anyways.

        1. Disloyal Subject

          What, White Russians are ‘old man’ drinks?
          I mean, people usually think I’m older than I am, but I’m not even 21 yet and they’ve always been my go-to.

        2. Maveric1984

          I think the movie made it into a young man’s drink

          That, and it’s quite a sweet drink, meaning it’s something newer drinkers can handle with little issue.

        3. JustCheetoDust

          I started drinking them after watching it, then got over it that same year. I might order it for social drinking now, but that is not a good way (for me) to get drunk.

        4. Barf Ninjason

          Yeah, neither sugar nor dairy are good for mixing with alcohol, IMAO.*

          *in my alcoholic opinion

        5. butting

          I have a black forest gateau with half a bottle of kirsch in it says otherwise.

        6. Disloyal Subject

          That’s why I like them; that, and I always have plenty of dairy products handy. I haven’t even seen that movie yet.

        7. gwalla

          Yeah, sweet/not particularly alcoholic tasting = young person’s drink, usually.

        8. EPPI

          Deffo not an old man drink. Kahlua is just boozed up sugar milk.

        9. JustCheetoDust

          I never thought I’d see “defo” ever get used here At the time–and this instance, I suppose–I was fooled by seeing Jeff Daniels drink it.

      2. Vince

        Maverick – I’m 55 & just discovered Manhattans about 6 months ago. They’ve replaced about 30% of my alcohol consumption. But in college, the closest thing to a mixed drink any of us ever did was cutting vodka with orange juice. Billie & Ruth would have fit right in.

        1. Maveric1984

          I took a bartender’s course a while ago in an attempt to get a job when I was unemployed. It didn’t work, but I did learn how to make my own drinks, and learn some new recipes to try. I started drinking Manhattans because if you ask for whiskey on the rocks, they’re going to put it into a shooter glass, meaning you only get 1.5 oz. If you get a Manhattan on the rocks, they put it in a rocks glass, so you get a full 2 oz, usually for the same price.

        2. gwalla

          Manhattan on the rocks? The Manhattan should be stirred with ice and then poured into the glass; it should already be cold.

          You want a whiskey drink on the rocks, go for an Old Fashioned. Also, Old Fashioned > Manhattans anyway so it’s win/win.

    2. Disloyal Subject

      I concur. Billie’s short, though.

      1. Maveric1984

        Lots of women are short.

        Well, I’m over 6′ tall, so pretty much most women are short to me.

        1. Yotomoe

          Plus she’s like half asian. Who also tend to be on the short side.

        2. Disloyal Subject

          Fair, but even though lots of people are short, some people are still used to using height as an age gauge, even for ages where it’s hilariously innacurate.

        3. Annie

          I can concur that this is true. I’m a 6ft tall woman and stopped growing in middle school. When I was 13 or 14 I’d have waitstaff tell me the bar specials and ask if I wanted a drink. My dad ducked out of line at the grocery store once to grab something and it wasn’t til after we got home that I realized they didn’t card 15-ish-year-old me for his beer.
          I’ve only been carded once in my life. That was on my 21st birthday and that was because my boyfriend asked them to card me.

          Now I’m 32 and I’ve noticed that people generally have no earthly clue how old I am. They’ll guess anywhere from mid-20s to mid-40s. I think now, just like when I was a teen, my age is just “non-descript adult”. Most especially if I’m taller than the person having to guess.

      2. John

        Billie’s actually fairly tall for a woman. She’s the same height as the twins, who I believe Willis has said are 5’7″. Average height for American women is about 5’4″ – 5’5″.

        1. No Name

          Wait. Then how tall is Ethan? I though Joyce and Walky were around the same height, and Joyce looks freakishly tiny next to Ethan. Is he super human? Or are inches bigger than I think?

        2. John

          Willis’s style tends to exaggerate height differences, but, yeah, Ethan, Joe, and Jason are all well over six feet tall. And Galasso is just fuckin’ ginormous.

        3. No Name

          The toque just adds to the statuesquity. Or whatever it’s called

        4. Airyu

          Awww, I always thought Joyce, Becky, and Dorothy were my height (5’2″) but I guess they’re all a couple inches taller than me! ;-;

  7. MM

    Wonder how many people he gets to admit the truth with that line.

    1. JustCheetoDust

      Maybe you could petition for a “Carding of Age” webcomic and find out!

      1. Twilightomens

        …How did you do that?

        1. JustCheetoDust

          [abbr title=”example hover text”]example text[/abbr]

          Replace “[” with “”

        2. JustCheetoDust

          Dammit.

          Replace the brackets above with chevron brackets like any other tags.

        3. Plasma Mongoose

          You need to use “greater than” and “lesser than” signs when using HTML.

        4. Plasma Mongoose

          You do it like this

          Remember to replace [ and ] with “greater than” and “lesser than” signs.

        5. Tommy Bologna

          Yeah sure, I’ll do that.

        6. Twilightomens

          I really hope this works

        7. HMRC4EVR

          But those damm chevrons can lock up or not lock or any number of things! Look at how much trouble they’ve caused SG-1

        8. withig

          Psst, you can write &gt; / &lt; for > or < to show up as text.

        9. Barf Ninjason

          &gt I am trying to do that thing you said. /&lt

        10. Barf Ninjason

          >>>>>< I am trying again.

        11. Barf Ninjason

          Ok I am stopping now. •___•

        12. gwalla

          Yeah, you need the semicolon at the end for character entities to work.

  8. Spidergirl

    Man, Billie’s self esteem is just taking hits left and right.

    1. Doctor_Who

      As is her liver.

      1. JustCheetoDust

        So the hits are coming from the right, then.

  9. EdwardRedword

    I guess that non-drinking pact she had with Ruth is definitely off then.

    1. John

      They already had a three-way with the two of them and Jack Daniels, so I’m guessing yeah.

    2. timemonkey

      They’re in the midst of a drunken-sharing-depression-suicide pact now.

    3. Tommy Bologna

      I’m honestly concerned for their health. Mentally and Physically. They’re both strong willed people who have a habit of enabling their addictions/problems.

      Looks like they need a little Joyce in their life!

      1. Rycan

        Yeah, they are both in a downward spiral that is going to get them both kicked out of college. Problem is, what they need is to seek out help, and neither is very willing at this point.

    4. Bagge

      I cling to the hope that this is another one of the bottles that go straight to the trashcan

      1. timemonkey

        None of Billie’s booze goes in the trashcan, she even got Ruth to stop throwing it out and drink with her.

      2. Rycan

        All of Billie’s bottles have gone straight to the trash can – once she’s emptied their contents into her stomach. She’s a full-blown alcoholic.

  10. Cephalo the Pod

    Ha, I was loading the site, and before I looked I was all “the story should shift back to Billie”.

  11. Plasma Mongoose

    This comic will make Billie seem older with every passing year.

    1. Koms

      Aging of age

      1. Cephalo the Pod

        Aging of the Dumb.

  12. Yotomoe

    Oh man. The fake birthday Billie chose made me realize that I’m almost 21. Damn shame that alcohol is gross swill that I don’t wanna drink.

    1. MM

      Billie’s fake birthday makes me realize people more than a decade younger than me can drink. No wonder I don’t get carded any more.

      1. grantimusmaximus

        I was about to say, 1993, wasn’t that they year Mario Kart came out? Then I remembered I’m becoming an old. 🙁

        1. TheLurkerAbove

          WE’RE ALL GETTING OLD *DOOM*

        2. SSG

          Funny you should say that. 1993 was, in fact, the year Doom came out.

        3. NobodySpecial

          Also the year Melissa Etheridge came out!

      2. John

        I was in college when Billie’s claiming to have been born.

        1. Sean

          Same here.
          I miss being carded…for ammunition.
          Never did drink.

        2. JWLM

          I was a university professor when Billie is claiming to have been born.

      3. Annie

        Yup, I was born in 83. I still refer to people born in the late-80s as “kids”. I always feel like college was so incredibly recent to me, until I remember that I was a freshman in college almost 14 years ago.

        Why can’t time just pause for a while and let me get used to being a certain age for once?!

        1. Orbit Junkie

          I have no idea. I just turned 21, and I still can’t get used to being 18.

        2. Dorje Sylas

          Wait until you can rent a car. It doesn’t get any better after that, until maybe “senior discounts” and they keep pushing those back, darn Baby Boom generations.

        3. Clif

          Nya nya!! Just wait till we get through with social security.

    2. Stephen Bierce

      Watching a friend get drunk completely cured me of the desire for alcohol ever again.
      Are we going to run into Mark Hamill? He was in THE BIG RED ONE too.

      1. Sailor_Arashi

        I’m glad someone else saw that sign and thought “First Infantry Division Liquor?”

    3. Maveric1984

      There is a lot of alcohol that is indeed gross swill. It takes some time figuring out what you like and figuring out what is good. I don’t recommend diving into whiskey, tequila, gin, or even beer. Start with a nice vodka (which should have little to no taste) mixed with juice, or how I started, with hard cider. You can try other stuff later when you learn what you like and what your tolerance level is.

      1. Yotomoe

        I’d rather not drink it at all. There’s not really any advantages to drinking it. Same goes for Coffee.

        1. Carriethedragon

          Yeah, as far as I can see, its advantages mainly include “not feeling out of place at parties.”

        2. Disloyal Subject

          That’s not the best advantage, but it’s not horribly shabby either. Plus it’s amusing to make it seem like you’re drinking more than anyone else when you’ve just been nursing the same cider all night, and watch how others react. More than a few try to ‘keep up’ and drink several times more than what the manipulator does.

        3. Carriethedragon

          Er, sure, do what you do, I guess, as long as everyone’s fine when it’s all said and done. But, much like many other “advantages” of alcohol, I would find that distinctly unenjoyable.

        4. Disloyal Subject

          To each their own. I dunno why I get a kick out of people making silly decisions off of flawed perceptions, but I do.

        5. Orbit Junkie

          I thought that’s what we came to Dumbing of Age for.

        6. Maveric1984

          Well, being tipsy to slightly drunk is kinda fun. There’s no “advantage” to it I’ll grant you, but as long as you’re not overimbibing and making yourself sick, you can have some fun being drunk. Plus, some alcoholic grinks are tasty.

          Same goes for coffee really. Sure you can get caffiene from other sources like pop or energy drinks, but I like the taste of coffee. I find as I get older, I prefer more bitter tastes to sweet tastes, so that might be part of it too.

        7. Disloyal Subject

          I fear coffee because my parents were about as addicted to the stuff as you can get growing up, and any form of chemical or psychological dependency terrifies me.
          And yet I’m fine with the occasional drink or five, because I don’t enjoy it enough to want to binge or make a regular event of it.

        8. Maveric1984

          Well, coffee has the side effect of being a diuretic, meaning about an hour after my morning coffee, I have my morning poop. Keeps me rather regular at least, but it also means I only really ever want just one cup a day. I also find that with my desk job, more than one cup leads to the shakes.

        9. Bill

          Excuse me, but a diuretic has its effect on the kidneys… which should bring on a morning whiz rather than a poop.
          I should know; I take a daily diuretic for my hypertension.

        10. Maveric1984

          Whoops, wrong medical term. Any clue what its called when a thing makes you poop?

        11. Kamino Neko

          Laxative.

        12. Yotomoe

          I have a personal fear of ever letting myself not being in full control of myself. I don’t like being any form of being inebriated beyond being tired or sugar rushing.

        13. JustCheetoDust

          Well, here’s hoping no one ever swaps out the whipped cream in your fridge with alcohol-infused whipped cream!

        14. DuckDuckMoose

          Good for you, setting that boundary. I felt much the same way for a long time. I eventually, for reasons, sloooooowly eased into occasional drinking, but there’s no reason you should. Alcohol can be socially helpful at times, but it’s not at all essential.

        15. StClair

          I wouldn’t call it an actual fear in my case, but yeah, I hear ya. I get in enough trouble when sober and supposedly in full control.

          (Also, I have a terrible sweet tooth. I like cider, wine coolers, drinks that are mostly juice, etc. I like to joke that when it comes to alcohol, I have the palate of a British teenager.)

        16. lekoppa

          I feel this way, exactly. People always seem to describe drinking as fun or relaxing (which, for many, I’m sure it must be) but from personal experience, I’ve only ever found being inebriated unpleasant, disorienting, and a few times downright frightening. It’s definitely not for everyone.

        17. Yet Another Laura H.

          Never really “got” being drunk for fun—- it really just feels like being 3 a.m. tired to me in the moderate stages, and major inebriation feels like you used to when you were a kid and you used to spin in a circle until you fell down.

          I did a fair bit of emotional-anesthesia drinking before I realized that I was basically giving myself a task— looking not-drunk— to distract myself, and there were more productive things to do with my time.

          Honestly, I kind of wonder what’s wrong with me, that I can’t appreciate being drunk like a normal person…

        18. Rycan

          I figure there are worse things than being unable to see the appeal in being inebriated. The first and last time I gave blood to a blood bank, I had an adverse reaction and nearly passed out. Upon returning to class and mentioning what happened, some kid eagerly asked me if I got a high off of it 😐

        19. Rycan

          Yep, similar case here – with an added disincentive of having witnessed the effects of alcoholism.

          You should be glad to know that there is no such thing as a sugar rush; it’s a psychological mind trick that parents play on themselves (unintentionally). Unless you’re diabetic.

        20. Yotomoe

          I’m a bit diabetic. Like…pre-diabetic. Trying to change that though. Then I’ll eat so much cake.

        21. Rycan

          In which case, definitely listen to your doctor, not me. Actually, that goes for anything medical. And best of luck.

        22. Bill

          Yotomoe said: “I have a personal fear of ever letting myself not being in full control of myself.”

          Wise move, Yotomoe, but the problem is that trying to keep that tight a rein on oneself only adds to the pressure.  Imagine a boiler with no safety valve.  And when (not if, but when) that pressure releases it will do so in a spectacular manner and with equally impressive results and consequences.

        23. Simon

          Avoiding mind-altering substances does not automatically mean that one indulges in no cathartic or stress relieving activities.

          I lead a very relaxed lifestyle, despite avoiding alcohol/etc.

        24. TSB

          +1

          Bill, that thing you just said is both patronizing and completely wrong

        25. Yotomoe

          It helps that I’m not SUPER social and I hate the smell so it’s not something I feel particularly pressured about.

        26. Rycan

          Frankly, alcohol makes for a really shitty safety valve. Just ask Ruth.

        27. Kryss LaBryn

          That’s an excellent reason for not drinking.

          I don’t much care about getting buzzed off alcohol anyways (given my druthers I’d rather smoke a joint, but can’t these days because I’m on a military base); but now that I have kids, I’m even less inclined to imbibe beyond a very occasional (like once every three months or so) glass of wine with dinner, because I never know when I might need to deal with an emergency that requires full use of my facilities, including the ability to drive.

          A friend stopped drinking to excess when he was staggering home one night (I think in the military?) when he came across a buddy passed out in a ditch, drunk to the point of not breathing. My friend had to do artificial respiration on him until the medics showed up. When he started the guy puked. Which made him puke. And then he had to keep giving artificial respiration while pausing to puke off to the side.

          Told me he never wanted to get so hammered that someone’s life was at risk because he wasn’t in full control ever again.

          Mind you, it seems that most people get that drinking-til-you-puke stage over and done with by the time they leave their twenties. It’s honestly just not that awesome.

          And yeah, there are alcohols that will usually appeal to people who don’t like the taste of alcohol, but if you aren’t interested in getting buzzed, why bother?

          Have you tried non-alcoholic apple cider (what Americans seem to call “hard” cider, not the organic apple juice with the bits left in? I don’t usually like the alcoholic kind (you can taste the alcohol too much and it tastes gross to me, like drinking apple-flavoured nail polish remover) but the de-alcoholized kind is actually really good. Like sparkling apple juice.

          Don’t drink coffee myself, ever since some medication where I had to avoid caffeine years ago, and now I just can’t take the caffeine in it, and I don’t really like the taste all that much anyways (although I think it smells great). I’m curious, where do you stand on tea?

        28. Rycan

          Hard drinks have alcohol in them. Thus, if it’s a hard cider, it’s got alcohol.
          For an alcohol-free cider, look for Martinelli’s in your local supermarket. It refers to itself as a sparkling cider, and is clearly labeled as non-alcoholic.

        29. Kryss LaBryn

          See, in Canada, “cider” is exclusively the stuff with alcohol, unless it’s the de-alcoholized version (like the de-alcoholized beer O’Doul’s). If you ask for a cider in Canada, wanting to get the organic apple juice, you’re gonna get the wrong thing.

          Mike’s Hard Lemonade is exactly what you’d expect, though.

        30. SDGlyph

          Mm, pretty much the same reason I haven’t been drunk in around 15 years.
          (From experience: Bill, of course, is also correct above about the downsides of a need for cast-iron self-control at all times, to the extent that you fear ever letting go.)

        31. SDGlyph

          Oh man, Ruth grav…

        32. gwalla

          I drink, but I don’t like the feeling of being *drunk*. The slow, fuzzy-headed feeling is no good to me. So if I’m drinking I usually don’t go beyond one or two drinks, unless it’s a special occasion and I’m eating a lot of food (on an empty stomach I’ll have maybe one beer).

        33. vlademir1

          While I generally laud such a view and sticking to it… there are several advantages to drinking in the right times and places with the right people. Society is, after all, still mainly built on networking rather than any kind of meritocratic principal.

        34. Solenoid

          Really wish it weren’t that way.

        35. DuckDuckMoose

          No idea what you’re talking about.

        36. Annie

          I’m with you. I’ve never been fond of drinking. It’s become a very, very occasional necessary evil now since I deal with chronic pain and there are times when the only thing that will take the edge off is a little Jack Daniels. But I think the only reason that even works is because I resort to it only about twice a year. If that.

          When I was younger, I found that saying Jack & Coke was my drink of choice took the pressure off me. Back when I was young enough that if I adamantly said I didn’t drink, I’d get downright harassed in to doing it all night long. I just pour myself a Coke in a rocks glass, say it’s Jack & Coke, everyone gets off my back.

          Once my friends and peers and I were past that stage, being the friend that didn’t drink was damn handy. I’d be the designated driver, got free soda and sometimes free food all night, and I could be sure my friends got home safely. I was also the friend that anyone could call at any time and I’d go get them and give them a ride home, no questions asked, no guilt-tripping. It wasn’t fun getting up at 4am to go across town to pick up my wasted friend, but I didn’t mind being someone they could rely on to help out and keep them from some potentially harmful situations.

        37. Orbit Junkie

          …You’re pretty cool, Annie.

        38. Cass

          If you don’t mind the looks it gets you, claiming to be a recovered alcoholic is the easiest way to keep people from bugging you about not drinking. I can’t stand the taste of alcohol and it is amazing the way some people will hound you about not drinking if you don’t have a reason for it they deem worthy.

        39. Rycan

          I have never understood why some people have a problem with me not drinking – then try to change my mind. Why does it matter?

      2. Carriethedragon

        I don’t know, as someone who agrees with Yoto, I’m REALLY tired of people telling me this. Out of everything I’ve tried–not an extensive selection, but one including things people told me were quality or that would appeal to someone who didn’t like alcohol–there’s been one thing that didn’t disgust me (it was an Amaretto sour).

        1. TSB

          I recently read a book called Proof about the science of booze (how it’s made, the chemistry of it, etc). In the chapter on taste it hilariously concluded that alcohol is probably inherently terrible tasting and people only learn to tolerate it or condition themselves to associate it with the pleasure of intoxication.

          I’d believe it. I like the unique flavors that go with alcohol in stuff like whiskey or beer, but pure booze taste is gross.

        2. Disloyal Subject

          That’s… consistent with my (limited) experience.

        3. Chris Phoenix

          I’m an exception to that. I dislike almost all beer, and over half of all wine. I don’t like being intoxicated, and at 44 I’ve never had a hangover. But when I tried 190 proof, I liked it, and I like over half of the distilled alcohols that I’ve tried, with or without mixers. I guess tastes just vary.

        4. StClair

          Yeah. When I do drink, it’s never to get drunk or anything, but just to sample the tastes that go with that nice whiskey, or limoncello, or whatever. And I’d be just as happy, if not more so, with a “virgin” version.

        5. TheLurkerAbove

          Makes you wonder how the Russians came up with vodka then!

        6. Kryss LaBryn

          Vodka’s made with potatoes, right?

          A year or two back I bought a bag of yams to go with Christmas dinner. When I got to the bag they were in, the stuff in there had some kind of liquid on them. Couldn’t figure it out for a minute, because there wasn’t anything liquid in there, and yet there was this sweet, honestly delicious-smelling liquid on my stuff.

          Ends up one of the yams was rotten and had burst open on the way home. Rinsed the stuff off and no harm done, but now I really want to try making wine with yams, because holy cow that smelled amazing.

          Yams are potato family; if the same holds true for fermenting potatoes I can totally see how “Hey let’s try drinking this!” came to be.

          –Mind you, in my limited experience with rotten potatoes the same doesn’t hold true, but hey, it’ll at least warm you up, which is a real plus in cold climates, so that was probably a real factor in its development. Plus apparently it makes spicy food like pepperonis and things awesome.

        7. No Name

          Alcohol doesn’t warm you up. It dilates the blood vessels, allowing more blood to go to the surface, making you feel warmer, but actually making you colder. If it weren’t for the fact that potatoes are native to South America, I’d seriously wonder how the Russians survived their legendary winters.

        8. Kryss LaBryn

          We know that now, but they used to think the warming sensation actually was you warming up. “My God, man, he’s freezing! Quick, come sit by the fire and drink this brandy!”

          But yeah, cold + alcohol = hypothermia. But I’m pretty sure vodka is older than that knowledge. 🙂

        9. tyersome

          <pedantic>Actually, potatoes and yams are not really closely related … Solanaceae vs Dioscoreaceae, and what most people call yams are actually sweet potatoes, which are in yet another family Convolvulaceae. Also, most vodka is no longer made with potatoes!</pedantic>

        10. TSB

          My extremely unscientific and historically uninformed opinion (I forgot a lot from the book) is that it was some combination of the following benefits: cheap, easy to mass-produce, harder to get wrong than beer or other spirits, could be made out of more different materials/cheaper materials

        11. TheLurkerAbove

          That’s right (not just potatoes, but cereal like wheat as well), but I was thinking about the bit where you mentioned terrible tasting – Vokda is practically ethanol and water, and it is pretty vile. Makes you wonder what made the eastern Europeans come up with it.

        12. Maveric1984

          Try Amaretto on the rocks, just by itself. Very tasty.

          If you like Nutella, try Frangellico, which is made out of hazelnuts.

        13. Luke

          I don’t drink alcohol or coffee. They just taste like crap to me.

        14. Huttj

          For me is was a Bacardi Silver, which fell into the category of “not bad, no, I don’t want another, just hand me a soda.”

      3. Disloyal Subject

        I like gin, but tequila is only good for making vanilla extract or spiking hot cocoa. Whiskey’s not my favorite, but it’s a social thing; hard cider is good, but usually way too carbonated for my liking. Vodka is great, though the cheap crap and the finer ones can be harsh.

        1. Opus the Poet

          Tequila is the only liquor I drink shots of neat, I drink my scotch on the rocks, can’t stand red wines or beer with too much hops, love dark beers especially bocks. My prefered alcohol is a really black porter or stout.

        2. vlademir1

          I have to insist that you distinguish between “finer” and “top shelf” in that comment about vodka. Really good quality, ie “fine”, Vodka is like drinking water until a minute or two later, “top shelf” is just as oft really expensive swill as it is really good.

        3. Kryss LaBryn

          Mythbusters did an episode where they ran cheap crap vodka through a Brita water filter; ends up it did improve it to the point that it was indistinguishable to their palates from the good stuff. Something to keep in mind.

        4. JWLM

          Using a Brita will work, but change the filters often — they’re not engineered to handle alcohol, and start leaking nasty stuff into your vodka and poison pretty fast.

        5. Kryss LaBryn

          Good to know!

    4. newllend(henryvolt)

      Damn I’m almost 20 and nobody remembers Samurai X, I’m not supposed to feel old till I hit 28

      1. Disloyal Subject

        If it makes you feel better, I’m almost 20 and have no idea what that is.
        If it makes you feel worse, I’m okay with that too.

      2. Maveric1984

        You’re too young to know what Samurai X is…

        1. newllend(henryvolt)

          I’m too young to know a lot of things But I remember Samurai fucking X

        2. neeks

          I want to know why I’m the first person in this comment thread to say “I think you meant ‘rurouni kenshin'” but I’m probably just showing my age. I’m totally an “old coot anime fan,” though.

          “In my day, if you wanted anime, you had to really work for it. Most of us had to settle for dragonballz and sailor moon reruns, and we were grateful! Now you kids have your YouTube and crunchy roll and any number of streaming websites and barely have to wait a week after an episode airs in Japan to see it in English somehow.”

        3. Kryss LaBryn

          “I had to wait and see the Macross Saga one episode a week, Saturday mornings, and if you missed one, TOO BAD. Kids these days with their streaming and their Intertubes…”

        4. Sailor_Arashi

          “I was collecting the subtitled Macross VHS tapes that Harmony Gold was releasing before they discontinued the release to make Robotech.”

          You kids and your ‘broadcasts’

      3. Huttj

        Oro…

      4. Gamaran Sepudomyn

        I’m pretty sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, I’ve heard of a samurai X, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the one you’re talking about.

    5. Thor

      I didn’t actually drink anything alcoholic until I was 28, so I know how you feel Yotomoe. I still can’t stand beer or wine, but there’s a ton of alcoholic beverages out there that are pretty tasty. However, if thinking it is all “gross swill” keeps you from drinking it, then that’s fine, as it is expensive and takes up money that you could spend on better or more tangible things. Though you might also want to moderate your venting on it, as a lot of people enjoy it and see an attack on booze as an attack on them for being someone who enjoys booze. You might want to say instead that it is not to your taste, or that you don’t feel that it has anything to offer you. This allows you to reject the booze without indirectly fastening a negative label on anyone who drinks (which is a vast majority of adults).

      1. Yotomoe

        If someone gets offended that I say alcohol is gross that’s more of their issue. I’m not gonna get offended if someone says chocolate tastes like ass. And I LOVE chocolate.

        1. neeks

          I’ve always been weirded out by the reaction “how dare you not like a thing I like!” I mean if anything, it means there’s more to go around for the people who do like it. It’s not like we non-drinkers are lobbying for a ban on the stuff (not that it worked all that well last time.)

          Granted I’d be more favorably disposed to booze if I didn’t practically skip the tipsy stage and go straight to hungover. Does bad things to me, I’ll sooner give it a miss.

      2. Huttj

        Everything I’ve tried has an aftertaste I can only describe as “alcohol,” kinda bitter.

        It literally leaves a bad taste in my mouth, to the point that I suspect what I taste is literally not what others taste.

        I’m sure I could find something sufficiently weak/sugared to not have the aftertaste, but since I have no interest in getting tipsy/drunk, at that point I’d rather just stick to soda, TYVM.

        1. Huttj

          Olives actually have something similar for me, though more of a sour taste. Need to pick em out of salads and such. If there’s even a sliver in there, I find out by tasting it and trying to not let my grimace disturb the meal.

        2. Annie

          In my experience even the sweet stuff has that aftertaste. The only exception is when it’s some drink that’s more like a slushie than any typical booze and only then if there is so little alcohol in it compared to all the other stuff that it might as well not even be there.

          When my husband has been drinking I can hardly stand to sleep next to him because every time he exhales he smells like that aftertaste, if that makes any sense at all. Unless he’s been drinking beer. Because of the kinds of beer he likes (which lately is mostly IPAs) he ends up smelling overwhelmingly like hops and yeast. It’s a similarly nauseating smell to me. He is baffled by it because he thinks it’s the most appetizing smell in existence.

        3. Rycan

          Being unable to stand the smell of alcohol would be a real bummer if you worked in a lab. I don’t drink, but I’ve had to work with 220 proof before. Stuff is overpowering more than anything, but not nauseating.

          Unless, of course, what you can’t stand is actually a breakdown product..

        4. Solenoid

          220 proof. How does that work? 200 proof is 100% pure alcohol by volume.

        5. Rycan

          I blame sleep deprivation.
          …
          What do you mean, I should go to sleep?

        6. Sailor_Arashi

          “Heavy Alcohol”

    6. brionl

      My youngest nephew was born in 93. March something or other. I should probably send him a birthday text.

    7. Dean

      I was almost old enough to drink legally on Billie’s fake birthdate. 🙁

    8. lekoppa

      I have never found being inebriated anything close to fun. As a few others have described, I have only ever found the lack of cobtol

      1. Bill

        I’ll admit that there were times in my 20s and 30s when I drank to become drunk.  However, after a couple of occasions when I woke up with no recollections of the night before and had to ask someone if I had had a good time, I decided that not everything worth doing was necessarily worth over-doing, and that moderation was the way to go.

  13. Em

    WHOOOOOA SNAP

  14. Doctor_Who

    Even though that isn’t intended to be her real birth year, the fact that it’s an actual date means this strip is just going to be funnier as time goes by.

    Right now she’s trying to pass for 21, but since there’s a floating timeline, she’ll just be passing for older and older. 20 years from now (Christmas break for our heroes?), she’ll be pretending to be 41, and the dude will still buy it because of her crows feet.

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      I’m surprised that Willis didn’t put XXXX as her card date or have the card guy just ask if she’s really 22 years old so comic doesn’t date itself.

      1. Yotomoe

        Who would want to date a comic anyway. They’re notoriously bad in bed.

        1. Orbit Junkie

          I’m torn between saying “Slipshine would like to have a word with you,” and “Yeah, four panels and it’s already over.” Please help.

        2. Yotomoe

          Slipshine is a bad lover. It just does sexy stuff and expects you to do all the work.

      2. CapedLuigisYoshi

        Thing is, I’m fairly sure asking her to say the birthdate without looking at the I.D. is supposed to be a “security question” of sorts, to try and make sure she’s not using a fake I.D.

        Obviously it’s possible to memorize that fake date, but it seems like that might catch… a few people? Probably?

        1. Annie

          Yeah, you’d be surprised how many people simply don’t lie well. Asking their birthday is especially useful when things fall so that the date they were born and the date on their fake ID are in 2 different decades. “March 3, nineteen-ninety– erm I mean eighty! Eighty-eight!”
          But even without that a lot of people will say the fake date very robotically, will stutter and stumble over it, will turn bright red, will go from looking at your face to looking at your shoes very quickly, etc.

          They’re usually clues that say “look at this ID closer.”

        2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          I say my real birth date like that.

    2. Airyu

      Oh yeah. This is the first “real date” mention we’ve gotten in the comic, right?

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        As far as I know it’s the first time.

    3. Gigafreak

      I’m nearly 30 and when I registered with the gym, the dude thought I was just out of high school. I guess this is evidence that Chinese people just have baby faces? That’s what I’m told, anyway.

      1. Doctor_Who

        I’m 30. Last year some teenagers at Taco Bell asked if I went to their high school.

        1. 4th DImension

          But than again you are a Timelord, I guess recent regenerarion screwed you over there and made you a highschooler?

  15. Varius

    Charming.

  16. Kennerly

    So…I guess Billie hasn’t been buying her liquor from this place the entire semester? If it were you’d think they’d recognize her buying booze there every day.

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      Maybe it’s a new guy or she chose a new place to shop…

    2. Airyu

      At the slow pace of this comic, maybe Billie’s stash from home only just ran out.

    3. Annie

      She could have been getting someone over 21 to buy it for her. When I was in college there was no shortage of people willing to do that (which baffled me, quite honestly.). Especially if the under-age person has a decent amount of disposable cash.

      1. Gigafreak

        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/card/
        Billie has definitely been buying it for herself.

  17. The Wizard

    Caw, Caw, Billie!!!

  18. Ridureyu

    KILL HIM!

  19. CarlaGriffin

    Omg, I was born in 1993, I’m finally old enough to drink in America!

    1. Em

      *high fives*

  20. tim gueguen

    Apparently the bouncers/doormen at bars in that neck of the woods are more cautious than the ones around State U.
    http://youtu.be/0GdV0M7RuQE?t=6m42s

  21. mare

    Wow, do American liquor stores have people carding you at the door like this? Ours only check your id at the cash, and even that’s a rarity. This kind of thing only happens at bars in my experience.

    1. Zan Thrax

      I was initially confused by the date she chose rather than the idea that she’s being carded on the way in rather than the way out. Then I remembered that the US drinking age is ridiculous.

      1. Drunken Nordmann

        That and – if that’s actually a store and not a bar – carding everyone entering sounds somewhat impractical. From my experience, store personnel’s only checking your age if you actually buy alcohol or cigarettes. The only places I’ve seen where you’re asked about your age at the entry are discos and clubs – you can even enter a bar here without having to show your card, as long as they sell non-alcoholic drinks, too. You’re only asked for your ID there, if you try to order a drink and don’t look the age.

        1. Drunken Nordmann

          Ah, I forgot that you have these “liquor stores” over there. My bad – I’ve never seen such a store around here, so I just didn’t remember.

        2. Loki

          Places where you get carded on entrance in Germany are casinos and most movie rental shops (because of the porn section they usually have). Isn’t it the same in Amercania?

        3. Rycan

          Mainly bars here. Movie rental shops have all but disappeared by now, and I don’t recall Blockbuster ever carding people (or having porn, for that matter – I was still a kid then, so I wasn’t exactly looking for it, either). No idea about the casinos.

        4. Gigafreak

          Germany has some of the most relaxed laws on alcohol consumption in the world. My best friend lives in Hamburg and sometimes I sort of double-take at the (usually just background context) alcohol-related details in the stories I hear about the place. I imagine a German person might double-take at the restrictions in place elsewhere.

        5. No Name

          I hear the drinking age is 16. 16!!!! The driving age is 18, though, so it’s not a total disaster. It makes a sort of intuitive sense too. By the time you’re allowed behind a wheel, you know your limits.

        6. Drunken Nordmann

          Drinking age depends partly on the alcohol percentage, if I remember correctly – didn’t they change the laws concerning that a few years ago? If you’re 16, you can drink beer and other low-percentage stuff – but some of the harder drinks you can only buy at 18. As I said, I could be wrong – most of these changes were implemented at a time when they didn’t affect me in any way.

        7. Kryss LaBryn

          They had similar rules in England when I went there in the mid-Eighties; under-agers were allowed on the patios if accompanied by adults; at 14 you had access to beer/cider, stuff like that, and at 19 or so you could have anything. MUCH better system that what we’ve got here in Canada, which is 19 for everything.

        8. Drunken Nordmann

          Ah, I was right. To quote the Wikipedia article:
          “14 for beer and wine (with permission of and in the presence of legal guardian)
          16 for beer and wine
          18 for spirits”

          And yes, at least I find the restrictions in some countries, especially the US, hilarious. 🙂

        9. Drunken Nordmann

          I think it’s 50/50 with the movie rental shops. For example, one of the larger ones in my home town has a so called “Porno-Ecke” (porno corner), a separated area which you can only enter if you’re 18 or above. Most of these shops I’ve seen do have these areas – I guess it’s a matter of practicality. The only rental shops I’ve seen where you get carded at the entrance were the ones selling only 18+ content.

        10. neeks

          I remember one time a friend and I were at a store buying some things which included alcohol consumables, and we both got carded even though I wasn’t the one buying the stuff, just along for the ride.

          Non sequitur, but it still bothers me that drivethru liquor stores exist, speaking of “along for the ride” and “buying alcohol”.

        11. Kryss LaBryn

          Here in Canada, while anyone can go into a restaurant that sells booze, so long as it’s formally a restaurant that sells booze and not a bar that sells food (there’s a legal difference), if it’s the latter, no one under-age is allowed in, whether they’re drinking alcohol or not. And that includes newborns, much to my irritation, as I found out when my son was born. “So, okay, we were in two weeks ago when I was pregnant, and you were fine with the idea of selling a pregnant woman a beer (no, I didn’t get one, but I could have, legally); but now that he’s on the outside and definitely not imbibing, we can’t come in?!”

          See, the law doesn’t specify when someone is so young that the whole thing becomes ridiculous; it’s just “below 19 years old.” So if the inspector does a surprise inspection and they’ve got a baby in there, then they lose their license for allowing a minor in. ><

          Mid-Eighties when my family visited my Gran in England, the rule was you could be out on the patio, so long as the minors didn't drink alcohol (but the adults could). When you hit 14, you could go inside, but you couldn't order the hard stuff, just ciders and beer and things like that. When you hit 19 you could get what you liked. Which to my mind was a far more practical and civilized way of doing things, because over here it's nothing 'til you're 19, and then it's full access to everything, which (1) ends up with more people hitting it harder once they are legal; and (2) forces that group of friends who don't share the same birthday to try and sneak their underage friends into the bar, if they all wanna go dancing at the same time, because if you're even one day below 19, you can't get in (although some bouncers will let you in if you can prove you're turning 19 at midnight). Stupid. Paints an unnecessary mystique around alcohol and doesn't allow them the chance to learn some self-control with the gentler stuff first.

        12. Kryss LaBryn

          Mind you, there’s no problem with bringing minors into liquor stores, so long as they’re accompanying an adult and the adult is buying (and not making it obvious that the alcohol is for the minor). And if they think you’re under-age they card at the till.

    2. Em

      I’ve never seen anyone card at the door, but it could be a state by state thing.

    3. Disloyal Subject

      I assumed that was the checkout…

      1. Em

        He says “you can go in”

    4. Annie

      I’ve seen a few places that card at the door. It’s not the norm by any means, but it happens. I’ve noticed that it’s more likely to happen at the stores closest to a college and then it’ll usually only be on Friday or Saturday nights. Every other night they’ll card at the register.

      Different chains tend to be more or less strict about it too. There’s one liquor store near me that they won’t let me in if I have my son (he’s 5) with me. At a different one if my husband or I bring my son the store manager immediately comes up to him, tells him silly jokes, let’s him sit on the counter, and usually has a small lollipop for him. I think some of that is because the guy genuinely loves kids, but also because 1) one of the basic rules of customer service is if you keep the kid happy, the parents are happy and will come back, and 2) encouraging the kid to sit on the counter and keeping him occupied means he’s not running wild while mom and/or dad are perusing (we don’t let him run wild in a store anyway, but some parents would and do). In a store filled with expensive glass bottles, a young child can do massive damage financially and physically in very short order.

      It really varies a lot by chain, individual store, location, who happens to be working at that time, etc.

      1. Gigafreak

        So considering this today’s comic happens in the evening, and in a college town, it’s very plausible that Billie would be carded by the door then.

      2. Kryss LaBryn

        My liquor store here in Nova Scotia, Canada has lollipops at the till for kids. Hadn’t really clued in on that until just now; it’s pretty common at most stores.

    5. Rycan

      WA used to have state-run liquor stores, which were the only stores allowed to sell hard liquor in the state (a recent initiative abolished this system). Never been in one while they existed, but I bet that they were carding at the door.

    6. chubsius

      They don’t card everyone of course, but if you look young and you spend too much time milling about and pondering your purchase, you might get asked if you’re actually old enough to be there. It’s happened to me, at least.

    7. AgentKeen

      It varies a lot from store to store, but there can be pretty harsh penalties for stores if they’re found out, I think (which also depends a lot on state/city/etc.)

      My dad’s favorite story of getting carded is that he used to always go to this one store, knew the owner pretty well, and bought stuff when underage. Then he turned old enough and they carded him, except he forgot his ID, so no booze for him.

  22. LiamAldam

    RIP Comic Book Time.

  23. DarkoNeko

    *googles up [[Crow’s feet]]*

    wow, that’s a bit rude 😀

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      Could be worse, he could have mentioned her having turkey-neck.

      1. Yotomoe

        or Bingo Wings.

    2. Marc in MN

      Maybe he tosses out that comment every time that he suspects a fake ID, but can’t prove it. You know….just to mess with them a bit. 😉

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        That’s my canon.

  24. IAmDeltaS

    For a moment, I forgot that the ID that Billie is using is fake, so I thought that it was 2011 in-universe and that that would make Billie technically older than me.

  25. Urukak

    Wait, since when do you need to be of drinking age to even enter a liquor store? Actually buying anything, sure, but just to go in?

    1. Maveric1984

      Depends on the store, but yeah sometimes. No point in letting someone in if they can’t buy anything. That just invites teenagers to steal instead.

      1. ahuh

        Some liquor stores also stock party snacks and non-alcoholic drinks in limited quantities, so in theory an underaged person could stop in there.

        1. Carriethedragon

          I’ve done this. We couldn’t find anyplace else to buy beverages. There was considerable grumbling as the clerk searched for the “Jesus juice” (Gatorade) in the back.

        2. Huttj

          I went in my first liquor store a few months ago (I’m 32, but never been a drinker at all). I noticed a number of bottles had tags clearly informing about an Indiana law that, if you call emergency services for help, you get a free pass on underage drinking.

          I dunno if there was something similar when I was growing up (never been a drinker, and in another state), but I liked how it was well labelled to encourage underage drinkers to avoid the “if we call for help we’ll get in trouble” dilemma.

        3. Mollyscribbles

          Yeah, that’s a good option — reminds me of a thing I read from a paramedic basically begging drug users to admit to what they took so the doctors know how to help.

    2. Rabid Rabbit

      The website for the liquor commission in my area asks you to confirm that you’re nineteen (drinking age) before entering. I’m amused they seem to think that booze is the same as porn, not to mention that anybody has ever actually paid attention to that and clicked “Leave this page”.

      1. neeks

        They don’t want the underaged to even LEARN about alcohol. Which is kind of dangerous, actually, because booze in the hands of the ignorant is not a good combination.

        1. Trumpty trump trump

          But it works so well with sex and drugs!

        2. neeks

          And guns, to a certain extent. Like, on the one hand, some people probably shouldn’t be informed of how to use a gun, but on the other hand gun safety is pretty damn important and knowing how to NOT use a gun can go a long way.

    3. Annie

      In Texas, most (maybe all?) liquor stores have a sign on the door that says you must be 21 or older to be anywhere on the premises. Many stores blatantly ignore this, especially if it’s a parent with their kid(s) or if the store has a fairly decent-sized food section, but some are really adamant about following that signage to the letter.

  26. Marc in MN

    I find it depressing that the year I graduated from high school is the year that Billie needs for a fake birthdate on her fake ID….

  27. Kris

    Crows feet! Hahahahaha!

  28. ridtom

    Jeez dude, who taught you manners?

    Is his job so boring the only pleasure he takes is crushing people’s self-esteem?

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      Or trolling people he suspects have fake IDs…

    2. Tommy Bologna

      You mean people who use fake I.D.’s?

    3. Kris

      He should have said. “That muffin top ain’t doing you any favors either.” Store clerk snark is hilarious!

    4. Orbit Junkie

      I’m going to have to say “yes, his job is probably that boring.” Or he’s Mike’s cousin.

  29. Urukak

    Soooo… does anyone else think the clerk guy looks a lot like Ninja Rick?

    1. Tommy Bologna

      That’s his brother Normal Richard, he’s a disappointment to the family.

    2. Catullus

      Willis has said that Ninja Rick isn’t going to appear in the Dumbiverse, but this is my new headcanon anyway.

    3. Yotomoe

      What, do white people all look the same to you? huh!? HUH!?

      1. Urukak

        God no, as a white person already I’d hate to just see myself whenever I look at another one.

        1. Rycan

          That would be hilarious to witness. Maybe downright terrifying, too.

        2. Gigafreak

          I’m pretty sure if I saw another “myself” walk by, I’d try to kick his/my ass. Precautionary measure in case of evil twins and dopplegangers, you understand.

          This is problematic because I’m Asian and, err, when I was little I used to think we DID all look alike…

      2. Kris

        If I say yes know it’s not because I’m racist but because I’m legally blind..Yes that seems like a believable excuse.

        1. Yotomoe

          well as long as you’re legal.

        2. Rycan

          If you are illegally blind, we may deport you to Mexico!

    4. Urukak

      Okay, so on further examination it’s pretty much just the hair. Their facial structures are completely different. But then, why should we let silly things like facts and observations get in the way of a good theory/headcanon?

      1. neeks

        You are not alone in thinking that was him, and i’m only half done with reading the comics but I’m sure there’s at least one more “omg ninja Rick!” further down.

        1. neeks

          Ok I stand corrected, I guess it’s just us.

    5. Rycan

      Ditto! I kinda doubted that it was really him, but that guy sure does remind me of that lunatic.

    6. B.D

      …now that you mention it…

  30. Bibulb

    NOT COOL, Billie, but NOT TACTFUL, store clerk!

    1. Disloyal Subject

      Tact, schmact.
      By which I mean I wouldn’t mind if they were both smacked.
      (Okay, I would a little, but I had to pun.)

  31. Keroshino

    Why does universe hate Waspina…uh, i mean Billie?

    Seriosly tho, what an asshole!

    1. timemonkey

      Billie brings pretty much everything on herself. By drinking heavily most of the time. Such as she’s preparing to do now.

    2. John

      Because Billie is hilarious when she loses her shit.

  32. Arquinsiel

    I started going grey at 22 or 23 IIRC. The legal age to buy alcohol here is 18. No problems if in a pub since I was 15 though. I still got asked for ID until I was nearly 30 if I was buying in a supermarket. Turns out that balding grey-haired 17 year olds are a problem around these parts or something.

  33. Walther

    Now you’ve got me picking through my less-than-fluent knowledge of Mandarin Chinese trying to work out ‘Yunru.’ A Google search brings up Zhao Yunru (赵芸如/趙芸如) from Deus Ex: Human Revolutions, which as a gamin’ geek was the first mental association I made.

    1. Gigafreak

      Billie’s middle name is in the form of a Chinese person’s given name. Chinese is monosyllabic, and names generally consist of a one-word family name and a two-word given name– three words total.

      So it threw me for a bit of a loop at first to see that Billie has a two-word middle name until I realized Mr. and Mrs. Billingsworth each probably just picked out a given name for her (Jennifer and Yunru, respectively) and just put the two together.

      I have no idea what it means (I stopped learning the language when I was, like, five) but I remember David Willis accepting suggestions for Chinese names for her, and that it was something apt.

      1. Nono

        It’s hilarious because if you have an English first name as well, your full English name has the two-word name behind your last name – which throws most forms for a loop when they ask for a middle name.

        Most of the time I usually end up with which isn’t correct, but isn’t worth the effort of fighting the system.

        1. chisci

          Only somewhat related to what you’re saying, but once an old man i was staying with referred to my dad by my mother’s surname, because me, being latino, had told him both my surnames and he assumed the first one was actually a second middle name.

        2. Gigafreak

          Should you ever decide to book a flight or hotel or something, do the travel industry a favor and give either exactly two names (first name and final last name) or exactly four (both first names and both last names). Never give three. They’ll have no idea whether the second name is part of your first or last, and be forced to guess; many hotel databases stupidly can only search by “last name begins with this string of letters” and not “last name contains this string somewhere in it.”

  34. Leorale

    I’m 29, and someday I’ll look as old as Bilile. Someday–! Maybe when my hair goes grey.

    Everyone always tells me it’s a good thing to look like a highschooler forever. I dunno; I kinda figure that when I’m middle aged, I’ll proudly defend every wrinkle. Guess we’ll see when I get there.

    1. Rycan

      I’m one of those people who grew up looking older than he is, so I assumed that it would be nice for people to start assuming the opposite. Then I learned from a friend just how rude some random strangers can be if they think you’re too young for [fill in the blank].

      Heh, I wonder if there’s grey hair dye…

      1. Solenoid

        Likewise. Mostly, it was the lumberjack beard I’d been sporting at the time. Apparently, people don’t ask questions if you’ve got a half foot of beard on your face, since nobody expects that from a 17-19 year old.

  35. Em

    So now that I’m thinking on it, I remember when I went with my (now ex) boyfriend to liquor stores, the signs said that underage people can go in if accompanied by an overage person, which is why nobody ever looked at me sideways. But I bet they do random cardings, (like they sometimes do at sex shops–yes I’ve been carded, annoyingly enough) so that might be what’s happening. They definitely card at checkout. But maybe this is to avoid carding at the cashier?

    1. Rebecca

      Since she’s not with anyone it’s possible he really is making sure she’s old enough to be in there. I had a clerk at a liquor store tell my friend and me once that he almost carded us the second we walked in because we didn’t look old enough. If you can’t legally buy liquor you really have no business being there, so I can see why he’d want to check when she came in.

  36. caesaria82

    I am upset that you’re at a liquor store, Billie. What are you doing? Please leave immediately.

    1. Rycan

      Unfortunately, little can deter her at this point in her addiction, or so it seems.

    2. timemonkey

      She and Ruth have a pact to drink and be self-destructive together.

  37. JessWitt

    I guess Billie wasn’t lucky enough get the youthful gene from her Chinese mom. (Speaking as a more fortunate Asian-American myself.)

    1. JessWitt

      edit: *to get

    2. timemonkey

      Or she did and drowned it in booze.

  38. davidfromcanada

    She is pretending to be younger than I actually am. Jesus I feel old all of a sudden.

    1. AtomsOrSystems

      This was exactly my response.

    2. Walther

      The longer you live, the more depressing you will find the little signs at stores indicating the date you must have been born on to buy alcohol or cigarettes.

      And other things. I still remember the day I realized that, in a class of teenagers I was teaching, not a single one of them was old enough to remember anything about 9/11.

      1. Gigafreak

        Y’know that trope where old people tell stories to their grandkids but the stories are pointless and boring as hell to the kids? I wonder if we’re going to be on the elders’ end of that exchange when we tell our kids about 9/11 and so on.

        1. Kryss LaBryn

          “Before 9/11, if you wanted to get into the US, they asked you where you were going, and why, and how long you’d be, and if you had any produce. Then they let you in! And to get back home to Canada, you just had to show Canadian ID to them! Even if you were flying!”

          “That’s stupid. How did you keep terrorists out?”

          “We didn’t have terrorists.”

          “Yeah, suuuure, Grandma.”

        2. Rycan

          They get pointless and boring when you start repeating the same stories over and over.

  39. Romanticide

    That probably really hurt Billie XD XD but I wouldn’t be surprised her habits are starting to show.
    And I just remembered how last year I was with my parents at a Cantina and were ordering some food (many Cantinas in Mexico city sell food, like 3 course menu) when the waitress looked at me and said to my parents “Is your child old enough to be here?” I was 27 at that time XD XD minimum age in Mexico is 18 by the way XD I kind of found it funny XD

    1. David M Willis

      At my thirtieth birthday I asked the server for a beer and she laughed and walked away.

      1. Speedball

        Man, I’ve seen photos, you DID look like a kid at 30.

      2. Romanticide

        okay, yours is way funnier XD

        1. neeks

          I might be able to top that, I was having lunch with my friend who’s two years older than I, and the waiter asked if she was my mom.

          We’re still not sure how he came to that conclusion, I don’t look 16 and she doesn’t look 40.

        2. Romanticide

          Now that one was sad D: poor friend of yours D:

      3. Walther

        Grow a beard. It helps.

        1. SDGlyph

          Yup. I grew a beard at 21 and I finally looked 18.

  40. meanderling

    What kind of 21 year old has crow’s feet, anyway? Also, yeesh, I started this comic younger than the main cast and now I’m like 4 years older than them. Good lord.

    1. Arianod

      The kind that’s doing their best to drink themselves to an early grave, I suppose.

    2. Sailor_Arashi

      The kind of 21 year old that gets the delirium tremens if they try to stop drinking.

      You have to drink A LOT and CONSTANTLY to get that dependent that young. Someone who drinks that much is going to look like they’re in their fifties before they ever reach thirty.

    3. Nyxness

      I’m a sophomore in college, and I still remember the point around October 2013 when I realized that I was further into college than the cast was and I’ve been reading since I was a junior in high school.

  41. JohnnyO

    So I’ve never been into the whole fake ID scene (friends’ parties are a lot safer) but I don’t really know how “carding” works, I turn 21 in May and I have babyface. And I’m afraid that when I turn 21 and try to present my honest-to-God real ID the cops are going to be called.

    1. Rycan

      At least your ID will be backstopped with your actual identity. Cops arriving shouldn’t be a problem unless you’re Hispanic or black.

      That said, I’d peg the chances of having your ID questioned as being remote. What you will get, based on the experiences of a friend, are some odd looks from other people in the bar who think you’re a teenager.

    2. winter

      I doubt anybody will call the cops. My experience with people purchasing alcohol underaged is basically that if you provide an id that looks good enough that the sellers can reasonably tell the cops they were fooled by it, they don’t actually care how old you are. It’s all about store clerks protecting themselves from backlash from the authorities/their employers and not at all that anybody cares about underage drinking. Maybe it’s different in other places in the US, but the clerk’s reaction here, actually considering calling the manager over this, seems really weird to me.

      If nothing else, since you are legal, you can always purchase from a place that scans the magnetic stripe on your ID card instead of personally scrutinizing your age.

      1. Kryss LaBryn

        Yeah, pretty sure in Canada, unless you be a dick about it and try to bluff your way through (“How dare you accuse me of lying!”), the worst they’ll usually do is tell you to get lost.

        Mind you, if you really are legal and they call the cops, the worst that will happen is the cops will laugh at them for not being able to recognize legal ID. Might be prudent to carry a couple of cards with your name on them, though, especially if they also have your birth date (like a medical card or what) and/or a photo, like student ID. Gets harder to claim you stole your older sibling’s ID if you’ve got multiple cards.

      2. Rycan

        If you’re in the US, your card will vary by state. Mine, for instance, has no magnetic tape, but it does have barcodes (both the old-fashioned kind and the newfangled one). I have never seen either barcode scanned, though. Granted, I almost never need it since I don’t drink.

    3. Gamaran Sepudomyn

      Having both a normal type of ID and a membership card for some uncommon organization with you would probably convince most people.

  42. Solenoid

    Well. I see Billie’s still doing her thing. This cannot possibly go wrong in any way, shape or form. At all.

  43. Mollyscribbles

    I never tried to buy alcohol before my mid-20s, but I’ve also never been carded even at places with the ‘we card anyone under 30’ signs up when I was substantially under 30. So I think I have an idea of how to minimize scrutiny: Instead of seeking booze with a “woot, I’m gonna get drunk!” mindset, just look exhausted. Look like you want one glass of something alcoholic to unwind a bit before heading to bed because you have work in the morning.

    1. Ray Radlein

      It’s actually fairly easy to look exhausted if you are a college student.

      1. No Name

        Especially a college student with crows’ feet.

    2. Kryss LaBryn

      That probably would work great. I came through the till last year with a 4-pack of some Caramilk cooler (it was on sale, figured it might be fun) and pretty hyper (I was out without the kids, for once), and they totally carded me. Which was awesome because I’m in my mid-forties. The best part is that I think she didn’t quite believe me, but didn’t have anything obvious she could point to as being off.

      Made my day.

  44. Idon'tcarenomore

    Neither of my parents drank, both of them had an alcoholic parent. They didn’t lecture us. The stuff just wasn’t in the house.

    NYs legal drinking age was 18, so I got a head start. And no idea how to handle it.
    I’m a short female, and never looked my age, the first time I was carded I was 33. It was fun being able to buy the booze for myself and friends.

    I drank petty heavy, as in from Fri. nite thru Sun. with friends, and to keep up with my husband to be.

    I didn’t like beer and I didn’t much like most booze. But, I discovered I liked Muddy Rivers (close to Russian), and rum on the rocks with a twist.
    I also could handle Vodka and juices. And didn’t really like any of it.
    Just going with the crowd.

    When I had my first black out, I quit. That was at about 5 years of drinking with the crowd. And never really liking any of it. Just going with the crowd.

    At around 30 or so I started having Champagne at New Years, and wine with diner on occasion. That I can handle and enjoy it.

    I don’t like being out of control, and no one who is drunk is in control.

    Btw, thinking drunk people are funny is even stupider than drinking, drunks kill a lot of people on the road, even themselves.

    Going along with the crowd as the reason to drink is about as stupid as any other reason, to drink. The stuff is horrible tasting. Screws up your judgement.

    Lucky for me I quit before I totally screwed my GPA and a couple summers of makeups and extra classes brought me back up again.

    I learned the hard way, that trying to keep up with an alcoholic (my husband) was a lost cause. I also learned in later life (after college) to say I’ll have a gingerale, and stay with it for the evening. The people pushing you to drink, aren’t going to wake up with the hangover, the chance of not waking up at all if you crash, and the chance of either dropping out or getting fired.

    So to Hell with them, do what you have to do.

    And yeah it gives you crow feet.

    1. Rycan

      Well said. Only thing worth adding is that a drunk doesn’t necessarily need a car to cause death and destruction.

  45. potato

    I just did this so it would give me a gravatar

  46. Kathleen

    I’ve been to a store that you have to be carded to enter. It probably cuts down on underage thieves, too.

    Alternately, if someone walks in that looks super young, you might card them on the spot just bc you’re suspicious

  47. Hors Service

    Maybe that’s an american thing, but I’ve always wondered how do people seem to get a convincing fake ID so easily. I mean, if I wanted to do one, I wouldn’t know where to start, with all the shiny reflectors and semi-transparent security thingies there’s on my french ID.
    Is it easy to do with the american ones?

    1. MrMinion

      The US doesn’t have an actual ID card like many European countries (France, Germany, etc.) do. The most common form of ID is a driver’s license that’s issued by the individual states. From the looks of it they don’t have any anti-counterfeiting features. Hence it’s comparatively easy to get a fake one.

    2. Rycan

      No reflectors on my Washington State ID card, that’s for sure. There is semi-reflective text along the bottom, however. So, you’d either need to find a blank card somehow, or alter your real ID card (or find a rather dumb clerk).

      In the States, ID cards are issued by each state – the only national IDs issued are Social Security cards (which are about as secure as a stripped screw) and passports (and those, of course, are far more secure).

      1. Rycan

        Forgot to add:

        Thus, an out-of-state ID card or driver’s license would probably face less scrutiny, simply because the clerk probably won’t know what to look for.

        This hodgepodge system will stay in place until the far right gets over there mortal fear of national ID cards. Yeah, it’s pretty ludicrous.

        1. MrMinion

          To be fair, personal identity cards – especially in Germany – have a pretty iffy history. Around here the predecessor was actually introduced by the nazis and jews had to carry them at all times. The rules were even so that they had to pay the full service fee even if it was usually discounted or waived if you had to carry them. It was almost comically petty, if it hadn’t been so horrible.

        2. Hors Service

          @MrMinion.

          Sure, but if even today’s democratic, peace-loving Germany has IDs, maybe there are good reasons to issue one? I would have guessed that the non-libertarian american Right, with their stance on immigration, would have been in favor of ID, but nope.

          I mean, it seems that nearly everyone in the US needs a form of proof of identity anyway, and since borders are open between states, why not issue a proper nation-wide ID?
          Oh well, we have the same silly blocks in France for different issues too 🙂

        3. MrMinion

          What, you expect a consistent political platform? 😛
          But yeah, I’m with you on that one. I find my ID quite useful. There’s some concerns about privacy, but let’s be honest, it’s easier and more useful to simply mine our various social media accounts. The government doesn’t know that much more about us.

        4. Bill

          Rycan — I used to work in a liquor store in a college town in western Wisconsin and we were also seeing a lot of extremely out-of-state ID cards (Arizona/Oregon/New Jersey/etc.) presented by people who looked suspiciously young but claimed that they were actually from that location and just attending school here.  However, at that time I also worked at said local college as well, so I was able to get my hands on a computer printout of the students at the school — you know, the old pin-matrix printouts on the continuous-feed greenbar paper? — complete with campus as well as their permanent (home) addresses.

          So the next time someone came in with a long-ways out-of-state ID and gave me that old song-and-dance, I just reached under the counter and brought out the printout in its binder, plopped it down, and started to riffle through it.  Let me just say that the person was out that door like they had been shot out of a gun.

        5. MrMinion

          Did you ever get shit for that? I imagine that colleges are quite protective about that kind of information and you printed it out and even took it away from the campus.

        6. Bill

          Not really.  They made up fresh ones of these every two weeks or so and passed them around to places like campus security, business offices, and the switchboard (where I worked).  I just asked if I could take one of the old ones after it was replaced (and why) and was told that it was OK.

          They also had smaller versions, much like a campus telephone directory, that I could have used as well — but the larger one, which was about the size and heft of the Manhattan White Pages — made for a much more impressive <b*WHUMP* when I plopped it down on the counter.

      2. No Name

        There are also Military ID’s, but there reserved for those in the military and their dependents and probably vary from service to service. Also, they’re pretty cheap looking.

        1. Rycan

          Ah yes, I’d forgotten.

      3. Sailor_Arashi

        My state driver’s license has all kinds of anti-counterfeiting measures on it. Reflective text, holograms, shiny things, bells, whistles, you name it.

        Clerks in other states think its fake because it looks like it came out of a Cracker Jack box or something.

        1. Rycan

          Hah! Reminds me of how there’s the occasional clerk who’s ignorant of the existence of $2 bills.

      4. Gigafreak

        My New Jersey driver’s license has these shiny transparent logo things overlaid on it. Are those the reflectors we’re talking about?

        New York State IDs (that is, a thing separate from a driver license) have no reflectors, but have a more interesting “gotcha” built in. If you suspect a NY State ID is fake, crumple it up in your hand and see if it gradually springs back to shape. If it stays crumpled, you can look super cool and pretend you knew all along that it was fake.

        1. No Name

          Yes, those shiny transparent logo things are reflectors.

          Cooooooool.

        2. Kryss LaBryn

          Our ID in Canada is all about the thickness and stiffness of a credit card. I have to admit, I’m pretty boggled at the idea that you can just “crumple one up.” O.O

        3. Rycan

          Same with what you find in Washington State. Exception being the piece of paper they give you when you’ve just gotten your license, but are waiting for it to arrive in the mail.

          Still, that would be pretty badass to just crumple up a fake ID. Yet I could see trouble arising from that…

        4. Gigafreak

          New York State IDs (again, NOT driver licenses) are soft enough to crumple, so failure to easily crumple it would be a giveaway too (but a far less badass one). I have one and I totally crumpled it a few times just for my own amusement.

    3. Jen

      Because they are done state-by-state, IDs here run the gamut from plastic cards with reflective text, holograms, and all sorts of anti-counterfeit measures to a piece of cardstock that’s been run through a laminator. In a college town, it’s not uncommon for kids to be from all sorts of faraway places, so people will just pick a state from far away and hope the clerk has no familiarity with said state.

      Also, I don’t know if it’s the case anymore, but there was brisk trade in the selling of the IDs of people older than 21. The fake ID dealer would have a large collection and do his/her best to match the person buying the ID with a similar looking pic on a 21+ ID.

    4. Hors Service

      Thanks a lot to all for your replies! It was wondering this thing for quite a while, I’m glad I found answers^^.

      To be fair, a friend of mine is still getting the student’s discount with his old Korean student card… Because it’s written all in Korean, even the numbers.

    5. John

      Billie being Billie, and since she’s apparently got a custom one with all the information on it accurate except the birthdate, I’m guessing she just threw money at the problem until it went away.

      1. Bill

        If you google “FAKE ID” you will find that there are companies outside of the USA that are capable of making bogus IDs, complete with the holograms and magnetic stripes that actually will carry information that matches the (fake) data on the face of the card, that are nearly identical to a legitimate ID.  They aren’t cheap, but then again, neither are iPhones and just about every college student seems to have one of those.

    6. Kryss LaBryn

      Easiest way to do it is to borrow an older sibling’s one, or a friends; if the hair and eye colour match, it’s usually close enough.

      Back when I was a teen, they went and used the same font for the birthdates on my provincial driver’s license that the phone book used, and in the same point size. So all you had to do was to find the year you wanted in a phone number, carefully cut it out, and tape it to the license with Scotch tape. Hit it with a hair dryer and it blended well enough to pass a casual glance.

      They’ve made them a lot harder since then, but there’s a real market for lost/expired ID. I know when you get the new one they want the old one back, but of course if you call it in as lost you can’t return it. Not that getting a replacement changes the date on it; it just frees up that ID for a friend (as long as you’re legal).

      My first driver’s license messed up the photo; it was like over-exposed or something. They sent me a replacement right away, and I used the bad (but still valid) one to get a friend into the bar. Just put another friend between us so the bouncer didn’t realize the names were the same.

      There’s still ways around it even with all the hologram bells and whistles, and there probably will be until they put a chip in the ID. Don’t know why they haven’t yet. Mind you, pretty sure the chip can be hacked as well, so, yeah. Yay human ingenuity?

      1. zach

        Rule 34 gives us hope for humanity.

  48. heavvymetalqueen

    I was like “wait isn’t Billie 18 why does she need a fake ID” and then I remembered oh right, US and its ridiculously high drinking age.

    Also I’m 31 and I get carded all the damn time because I look roughly 16. I’m like a reverse Billie!

    1. a4lbi

      Still-Get-Carded folx unite!

      1. heavvymetalqueen

        And let’s find an older looking person to buy the booze!

    2. Charlie

      I keep thinking the same whenever they talk about being to young to drink. The idea of not being allowed alcohol in college seems so weird to me.

    3. Jen

      Me, too! I’m 36 and at this point being carded is a compliment. 🙂 The last time was a little weird though. The ID has a pic of me in glasses, so the lady quizzed me on my address and middle name. That had never happened before. Even if I hadn’t had LASIK, contacts are a really common thing.

      However, her difficulty at identifying me without glasses lends weight to Amber’s secret superhero identity not getting caught. Clark Kent would have had no difficulty fooling that woman. 😉

  49. Bryanp

    The birthday. I just realizes that people born after I graduated college can buy booze. Ouch.

    1. Bryanp

      Errr. Realized. Stupid ipad keyboard.

  50. pretty flacko

    Is that Galasso’s son?

    1. timemonkey

      Galasso has no son.

      1. tim gueguen

        Yeah, just a back room full of clones in giant glass tanks.

  51. Cat

    Is it just me or does this strip take place in the future?

    I mean I’m a June ’93 birthday so around last September or October or so I was getting these conversations. Either I missed something and it’s already at least November in story (“you must get carded all the time” implies that she’s been 21 for at least a few days or else they comment on how you just turned) or this takes place in 2015 and she’s trying to pose as about to turn 22, in which case, this strip is actually in the future of time posted.

    1. Maveric1984

      It’s a fake ID. She’s only 18. Willis has said that DoA takes pkace in the present, even if it takes 3 months to advance a day, it’s always this year.

      1. Bill

        If she’s even that old.  I started kindergarten when I was 4 and didn’t turn 18 until late in November during my first semester at college.  So if she started school young (or got advanced a grade somewhere along the way, although Willis has never even alluded to this) she could still be 17 as well.

    2. Solenoid

      Dumbing of Age exists in a weird temporal space. Whatever happens, it’s always Now. So in 10 years, Billie will be trying to pass as 32. Blame Comic Time.

    3. la6ue mous snow angel

      I thought it was the future at first, then I realized I was 19, not 18.
      She’s pretending to be 21 and a half, basically. She needs to be at least 21, and having a recent birthday might look suspicious, but being older than 21 might also look suspicious.

  52. ThatGuy

    omg she’s so young!

    <–born 1986.

    guess i should be glad when people mistake me for an 18 year old then.

    1. rosainverno

      That’s exactly what I was thinking. Mid 80s too myself. Still get carded for R rated movies and glue…I take what I can get.

    2. Gigafreak

      The Doctor (Doctor Who) is like a zillion years old but looks like a comparatively young human and maintains a childlike sense of wonder and excitement. Being numerically old but physically and emotionally youthful makes you more like the Doctor, which is generally a cool thing.

  53. Bilal Kalyal

    And now the name “Yunru” is stuck in my head. Perfect.

  54. Intie

    god bless america

  55. Aidan

    and here i was thinking for a second “oh where the same age, neat” you americans and your drinking age of 21… so weird

  56. Eyebrow

    I haven’t been back in the US for some time and I had forgotten just how *tacky* the liquor stores look. Seriously, guys, “Big Red”? “Number One”?

    A little dignity would go a long way.

    1. JV

      Big Red One is actually a US Army unit. The 1st Infantry unit of Ft Riley.

    2. Eric

      Old infantryman started the store. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Infantry_Division_%28United_States%29

      1. Eyebrow

        Okay, that makes some sense.

    3. Bill

      Cant say for sure if the ‘old infantryman started the business’ story is true, but according to their website they are a huge regional chain of liquor store in the central Indiana region.  Therefore — large chain + high traffic + probably somewhat lower prices + in a college town = the “go-to” for underage drinkers.  And their website says that their staff gets a bonus for any fake IDs detected and confiscated.  So this part is more than believable.

  57. Eric

    Carding pisses me off. Asshole, I have a beard with white hairs in it. It’s not “funny” or “endearing” anymore, you’re just shitty at your job. Give me my whiskey.

    1. Deanatay

      Spoken like a true booze-head. Any other soul in your shoes would be flattered that someone still thinks you look under 18. Carding is the law, get over yourself.

    2. timemonkey

      And you can start going grey and white as a teenager so that means nothing.

      1. Gigafreak

        And crow’s-feet wrinkles!

    3. apostateCourier

      Yeah most stores REQUIRE carding every single time regardless of apparent age. Sorry, buddy, but the sign on the door says I have to check ID.

  58. JV

    Big Red 1
    Patch on my shoulder
    Pick up your rucks and follow me
    Straight Leg Infantry

  59. ThisNameIsSubjective

    Automatic favorite character now because her fake id says she’s my age. xD I wonder if this ‘birthday’ is likely to change, if they’re allegedly never going to graduate… Just be a little higher any time we hear it.

    1. anonymsly

      In twenty years, this strip will be even more hilarious.

  60. Alexx

    Ah, reminds me of the theater workers asking my wife and I if we want the student discount. Thanks! I guess we still look young enough. Perhaps it’s the video game T-shirts.

    1. Gigafreak

      Google “average gamer age” and then hope to hell that those clerks never do.

      1. Eyebrow

        Next up: average webcomic reader age may surprise you too.

        1. Sailor_Arashi

          But first: Your local weather.

        2. Drakey

          Right after these messages.

  61. Saelmve

    =O rude. That fake ID implies that she’s only 21 and as far as I know 21-year-olds aren’t known for having crow’s feet. And if they do, something is maybe making them age faster than normal. Something like idk ALCOHOL. Oh. Yes. the point, I see it now.

  62. lightsabermario

    Man, I remember the days when this cast and I had the same birth year. Comic book chronology, gotta love it.

    1. Spencer

      When the comic started out in 2010, everyone was the same age as me, entering college at the same time.

  63. Benjy

    I keep forgetting that since I was born in 93, I’m legally able to buy alcohol. I saw the year and thought “Welp, she screwed up. That’s too…wait.”

  64. Pinja

    I wonder who she could possibly meet in there…

    I wonder if Asma is a “Bacon-sandwich-washed-down-with-plum-brandy” type Muslim.

    1. Pinja

      Oh, wait, it’s a store not a bar.

    2. Rycan

      Huh? Asma didn’t appear in this comic. I don’t follow…

  65. Marie

    Does comic book time mean if she uses a fake ID this time next year (our time) her ID will read 1994?

  66. Julez

    …Oh god this just reminded me that this years batch of college freshmen were born in ’97. Oh god, now I feel so old.

    1. David M Willis

      Joyce is currently as old as Roomies!.

  67. Volkai

    Oh man, Big Red, I forgot about them!

  68. Head_Alien2

    I voted for Sal/Jason, but I’d be damned if I didn’t want Mike and Amber again.

  69. Spencer

    Billie is a depressed, suicidal alcoholic currently acting as the sole emotional crutch for someone with the same circumstances with whom she is involved in a mutually destructive relationship that will inevitably crash into a burning heap, probably destroying both of them utterly.

    So why do I think it’s funny when Billie suffers?

    So why do

    1. Rycan

      I’ll repeat a comment I made on IW!

      Dumbing of Age: You really shouldn’t be laughing, but you’re doing it anyways.

  70. Charles Phipps

    I wonder if we’re meant to assume Billie really has a problem or is just a heavy drinker.

    1. winter

      Billy’s drinking has caused her to forfeit her cheerleading position, to alienate her friend from high school, and to lie to Ruth. She also was in a major car accident because of drunk driving, and it’s implied she uses drinking as a coping mechanism for depression and mood swings.

      I think it’s pretty goddamn clear she has a problem.

      1. Jen

        Plus, she lies about her drinking to close friends and loved ones, including lying about quitting. Giant red flags saying “PROBLEM!!!”

  71. FrootBeer

    Is… is it stupid that I feel special because Billie’s fake birthday is my real birthday?

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