If you ever used the title phrase to intimidate a service worker, I hate to break it to you, you’re an asshole.

Just kidding, I love to break it to people.

The most frequent one I hear is “My dad’s a lawyer.” It’s practically standard practice that one member of your group be related to a lawyer. Which practice? Doesn’t matter.

Estate Planning? Help me with my fake ID.

Family Law? Help me with my fake ID.

Medical Malpractice? Help me with my fake ID.

Personal Injury? Maybe. And I’d only let you drone on if you could set up a meeting with Joumana because I’m still not convinced that’s a real person and not a S1M0NE-esque Detroit deep fake.

It’s the be all end all, or is it? What happens when both parties in the squabble play the privileged card up their sleeve? And yes, this is absolutely white privilege. Why? Because other groups will say they know people who have helped them train for the fight itself. White people always brag about how they’ll escape the repercussions of a fight.

After my 1,000th fake ID, times have been slow. January was a slog, New Year’s Eve notwithstanding. A weekend of one, then none, then three again. But that second to last one put up a fight.

Literally.

Except…not with me. Or anyone else who worked at the bar.

No, she picked on someone her own size, and won. Sort of.

People get mad when I spot a fake right away. Like, less than a half second, corner of my eye deal. To them it means I barely looked at it and I’m dead wrong. To me, I am so sure about the horrible quality that I get a real nice dopamine rush signaling that I’m about to make some money and ruin someone’s night.

A taller girl walked up with her shorter friend. Neither one was simply average. One was about 5-foot-10 and the other about 5-2. Dressed like they just raided the vintage clothing tent at a summer street fair. The taller one had the fake still inside her wallet, so I waited patiently for her to remove it. In hindsight that probably set her off more than the actual confiscation — the effort it took to fidget with her wallet.

It went from wallet to my pocket in the blink of an eye.

And as much as she huffed and puffed, the card wasn’t going anywhere.

In a tag team that rivaled the Two Stupid Dogs, the small one (SO) ranted that what we were doing was illegal and we were in BIG trouble. The taller one (TO) echoed many of her friends points, but offered nothing of her own personality. SO had this figured out.

“My dad is an attorney and legally you can’t take her ID.”

Once I stopped laughing I replied.

“Oh, you’re serious.”
”What you’re doing is breaking the law.”
”Cool, call the cops.”
”No, I’m going to call my father!”

It’s just before midnight and I have no idea where these girls are even from, let alone what kind of law her father practices.

“You legally cannot take it,” TO said, on the brink of tears.
”Actually I legally can. It’s not even a gray area. I can just take it.”

Seriously, I can just take it. We have to give back real IDs no matter what, but to the real person (or a guardian). You’d be surprised how many “borrowed” IDs we have in a box that people just straight up abandoned. Passports, too. Whole purses. Social Security cards. A birth certificate. People love leaving important government documents in a dive bar.

TO kept repeating the same line over and over, thinking I was going to give in and change my mind. SO already dialed the phone and was on the line with … someone. It wasn’t the cops, and the speaker sounded like a younger person, so it wasn’t her father either.

In the corner, a pair of women stood eating popcorn waiting for their Uber. Both were about 5-9, 5-10, however, they were dressed for the weather. Clad in fluffy coats and jeans, the duo stood side-by-side giggling at their “dinner and a show.”

TO took offense.

“What are you laughing at,” said in the schoolyard taunting style.
”Oh, us? Nothing,” Fluffy 1 said.
”Well, why don’t you cross me, bitch!”

Thing is, F1 had to cross her to get to the car waiting, which arrived shortly after TO’s first snide remark.

You can’t predict crazy.

When the fluffy coat duo walked out of the gate, TO stepped up.

The popcorn bag.

Oooh, the popcorn bag.

That’s what really set her off. If F1 had just set it in the trash, or even crumpled it in her pocket, I don’t think there would’ve been an issue. But she fluttered it in TO’s direction. Not thrown, not tossed, not aimed. Just let it fall from face level to the ground. Except, it didn’t reach the ground, not right away.

The popcorn bag landed on a shoulder attached to right arm attached to a fist about to land a crushing right uppercut square on its intended target — F1’s lower left jaw.

F1 crumples onto the pavement, wet from a sanitized water cleanup post street-vomit extravaganza.

Before she could adjust to her new surroundings, TO was in the opening stages of her ground-and-pound attack. F1 held onto TO’s legs for dear life. Bold move.

Bad move.

Without leverage, F1 was helpless as TO put her body weight on the woman. Then came arms in movement. Right. Left. Right. Left.

SO got some licks in, too. She went around with kicks to F1’s head and legs.

Normally, if a fight happens outside the bar I do not get involved. Fights are crazy dangerous and unpredictable, even when you can see one forming right in front of you. Especially if they’re all women. I don’t need to get clawed in the face again.

Both parties outside? Yes.

Both parties fighting each other? Lopsided, but yes.

Both parties did some trigger action? Kind of. If someone is yelling at you to fight, then you let trash fall on them, it’s not overt but the intention is there.

I only stepped in once it was clear Fluffy 2 was absolutely frozen in place and not coming to the rescue.

Now, mind you all of this took place in about 10 seconds. TO had clearly won the fight, however she was going to lose so much more.

Because I had her fake ID. You know, with her name and stuff on it. And a fluttering popcorn bag isn’t nearly as incendiary as, say, a sucker punch to the lower jaw. Then there’s the attempted theft.

TO got up and took F1’s wallet and phone. After I helped F1 to a chair I stepped toward TO to retrieve the beaten woman’s things, at which point SO screamed that I was assaulting them as a way to get sympathy from onlookers. It was a far-fetched idea as Snapchat caught the fight in full detail not 25 seconds ago.

TO eventually relented as F1 blurted out, “my boyfriend’s a cop!”

Hoo-Boy! It’s a good ol’ fashioned 2-for-1 privilege special.

The four women were trading barbs back and forth.

SO: “My dad’s a lawyer!!”
F2: ”Well,” she said in tatters, “her boyfriend is a cop!”
TO: ”Whatever, bitch!”
F1: ”You don’t even know us!”

Marinara was outside with me for most of altercation, but had to run inside for a bit after the fight, presumably to let everyone know there was a fight. A few minutes go by and he confidently strolls out the front door and says, “hey, if we’re still dropping names I gotta cousin who’s a drug dealer.”

The Uber was now long gone, fleeing from a disastrous fare, and the cops were on their way.

Or so I thought.

F2, now sobbing more uncontrollably than Florence Pugh in Midsommar, was on the phone the entire time her friend sat in a chair checking her newly ripped jeans and fresh knee wound. I told her to call the cops. Shit, I told TO and SO to call the cops.

Did any three of them listen? NO.

Because F2 called a cop.

Singular.

She called F1’s boyfriend 75 MILES away!

I corralled her, showed her the fake ID, told her to take a photo of it and call the real police in the city in which she was actually standing. Still crying. So much crying.

“What kind of person am I,” she lamented, “to watch her friend get beaten up and do nothing?”

I did not rephrase that to make her sound more proper. While her tears were real, she articulated them as if she were a scenery-chewing period piece, like Florence Pugh in Little Women.

As F2 wept, TO laughed and laughed for 10 more minutes. Five minutes longer and the real police would’ve questioned her. Had F2 done what I told her to do, TO would more than likely have spent the night in jail. Instead they raced down the road, yelled at some oncoming traffic, then got in a car that ran a red light.

The cops took statements, saw the fake, wrote all the names down, gave me back the fake (fine, whatever) and asked F1 if she’d like to get a ride to the emergency room. F1 sat still in the chair while the 13-degree win swept around her pant and jacket tears, a definite bruise forming on her jawline, then pawed at the scratches to her face and throbbing knee, feeling each kick to her head and legs as each second passes, much like Florence Pugh at the climax of Black Widow.

F1 declined the hospital stay, opting to wait another half hour until her cop boyfriend reached downtown.

The moral of the story is: don’t eat popcorn, but if you really want to, stream some Florence Pugh movies, because they’re like, all online. And they’re somehow all the first options. Does her agent pay for those placements? Odd. Speaking of, The Wonder was an odd flick. Avoid Don’t Worry Darling, though, as it’s basically a Black Mirror ripoff.

I also enjoyed Hawkeye.

I heard she’s in the second part of Dune, too.