Those Drinks'll Cost Ya

So there I was at the Liz Phair show at the 9:30 Club. I was up right by the speakers at the left side of the stage, which is not something I recommend unless you're wearing earplugs. Which I was.

(And not just any earplugs: This was the first time I tried my new Etymotic Research ER-20 High-Fidelity Earplugs, which are supposed to cut the decibel level without muffling or distorting the sound. They worked pretty well -- they'd better, at 7 bucks a pop.)

Anyway, there were these two girls in front of me. They were joined by a guy who brought them drinks. I'm not sure if he'd known them from before or just met them.

All of a sudden, one of the bouncers, who'd been up posted to watch the stage door, comes over and asks the girls for ID.

It was then that I noticed that they didn't have hand stamps. The 9:30 Club is all ages, but you need a hand stamp to drink.

Keep in mind, that the stamp instantly turns into an amorphous black smear the second it hits your hand, so it's not like it's an insurmountable barrier to underage drinking.

I was reminded of my long-distant college days, when we would get into frat keg parties, then find an appropriately colored dry erase marker off one of the ubiquitous door message boards and draw the incredibly-hard-to-forge hand stamp (usually the Greek letters of the frat house we were in) ourselves.

Anyway, the girls didn't have ID, so they were asked to leave.

The gentleman who brought the drinks was also asked to leave.

Since I didn't know them, it was amusing to me, particularly since it was so avoidable.

Also, my sight line was much improved after they were gone.