Look, I get it. You were out looking for a couple of laughs. Probably expected to have yourself a downright hilarious time. I bet you thought you could read a few articles, chuckle at some jokes, and we’d all be none the wiser. And really, I’m not trying to be a hardass about this. But all jokes aside, I’m going to need to see some I.D.
I remember what it was like being a kid. Some days there’d be nothing better than getting together with your friends, throwing on a prized track by Jefferson Starship, and cracking open a couple humor magazines. And sure, humor magazines make for a great time, and Jefferson Starship is top-notch. But the law is the law as far as I’m concerned. And in this instance specifically, the law would require that you put the jokes to rest and pull out a driver’s license or other state-issued identification card.
Is this the career I envisioned myself pursuing back when I was a teenager like yourself? Busting college kids for small-time misdemeanors involving magazine possession? No, not exactly. Has dissatisfaction with my career driven me into a crippling dependency on humor magazines not unlike the ones that I am now planning on confiscating from you, a dependency that has destroyed both of my marriages and all three of my attempts at forming a Jefferson Starship tribute band? Let’s just cool it with the questions, okay?
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with a group of legal-age adults responsibly working through a stack of humor magazines over the course of an evening. But there are some real dangers to getting involved with this stuff at a young age. If you can’t control yourself now, you might wake up in twenty years and realize that after one too many nights of stumbling home, smelling of freshly printed magazines, your two children, Hannah and Bobby, won’t even speak to you anymore. Or even worse, your good friend and lead bassist, Officer Johnson, might realize that you’ve been pretty unfocused at practice lately and suggest that the band go on hiatus until you can get things in order. These are consequences that you, and you alone, should be worrying about.
Listen, I know you think this is a real hoot, but I’m obligated to enforce the law. So why don’t we table the jokes for a minute, display a valid form of I.D., and focus on which of us has the real problem with humor magazines. You do. You have the problem with humor magazines.
-MA’19