Crashing Wedding Crashers

The first R-rated movie I saw in the theater was Wedding Crashers, back in 2005.

Seriously, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson crashing weddings in order to hook up with chicks? That was cinematic cocaine for a wiry 17-year-old like me.

I saw it as a rite of passage; a boy becomes a man as he strolls into an R-rated movie without his parents.

*trumpets blare*

There was only one problem.

I didn’t have a driver’s license 😕

At the time I didn’t feel the need to get one, because I had friends who would drive me places anyway, so what was the big deal?

It was a contributing factor to me getting through all four years of high school with approximately zero girlfriends.

Anyway, I couldn’t buy a ticket to an R-rated movie without one, or how else would I prove I was old enough to see the movie?!

Well let me tell ya, I was going to see Wedding Crashers, photo ID be damned.

So I got together with a group of friends and we (and by “we”, I mean the friend who actually had a driver’s license) drove to the theater.

I stood in line as my friends bought tickets, watching each of them show their licenses to the attendant.

What was I going to do?

This was no time to wilt in fear. It was a time…for desperate innovation.

I strode up to the counter.

“One for Wedding Crashers, please.”

The attendant looked up.

“And can I see your ID?”

I reached into my pocket and said “Well, I don’t have my license yet…but I do have my birth certificate, will that work?”

The attendant burst out laughing.

“Dude, here’s your ticket, you’re good.”

I looked at my friends, looked back at the attendant with a big shit-eating grin on my face, and said, “Why thank you, sir.”

I followed my friends inside.

“Did you really bring your birth certificate with you?” One of them asked.

“I most certainly did,” I replied. “What other guy would go so far as to bring his birth certificate to prove he was old enough to see Wedding Crashers?”

I told you, I was gonna see that damn movie!

I would have been more proud of myself if I could have just remembered what I did with that birth certificate…