I have been wondering about something lately and I thought I’d see if anyone else has some insight to offer. This weekend I bought some clothes at the mall and I was asked to show my driver’s license. That in itself isn’t odd, since some stores ask for that as a policy, and sometimes clerks just ask for it when they don’t think the signature on your credit card is legible. This time the clerk actually did a double take… she looked at my picture, then looked at my license and then at the picture again for a minute before shrugging and handing it back to me. And that didn’t suprise me… but what did is the fact that she didn’t say anything after all.

About a year and a half ago I reached a significant, life-changing personal milestone: I stepped on on the scale and weighed 95lbs less than I had almost 2 years before that day. I lost all that weight faithfully following the Atkins diet and during the process watched the surprised expressions on the faces of family, friends and acquaintances that hadn’t seen me in a while when they didn’t recognize me and suddenly realized who I was. I look like a completely different person.

Judge for yourself:

Driver’s License pic	Recent similar pic

Knowing that I am the same person in both those pictures, you can definitely see the resemblance, but if your responsibility was making sure that a person is who they say they are, wouldn’t you at least question it if you were presented with my license? Especially if you were an airport security agent in the U.S. with our perpetual state of “Orange Alert” because everyone is a potential terrorist?

So, why is it that I have been through several airports and many financial transactions where I’ve been asked to show my license but never once been asked whether I was really the person in the picture? Am I (and other people I know) deluded into thinking that I look significantly different now? Is it simply a race thing, not questioning because I’m a white female? Do I look particularly trustworthy? Could it possibly be people trying to avoid embarrassing me (I can’t imagine that!)? Or is it that no one pays attention to ID pictures after all? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking to be interrogated every time I show my license. I’m just curious as to why no one has ever asked…

If you’re wondering why I haven’t updated my license, mainly it’s because I’m lazy. I’ve been waiting for it to become more of a hassle to not change it than to wait at the DMV for 3 hours and stand in 5 or more lines to get it fixed. But since no one has ever bothered me about it, it’s not yet worth the pain. Besides, I figure if there is anywhere where I will encounter trouble proving that I’m really who I say I am, the DMV will be the place.