Some Guy Successfully Bought Beer Using a Blockbuster Card for ID

If you're trying to buy beer and don't have your driver's license in your wallet, you could theoretically spend all afternoon trying to convince the cashier that you're over 21. You could loudly talk about dial-up internet, roller skates with four wheels, or that bitchin' Billy Ocean cassingle you used to have. You could lean your head toward the counter and tearfully confess that your roots are all gray. Or you could do what one Redditor did and flash a Blockbuster card.

A Redditor named boomboomsaloon posted a picture of his surprisingly well-preserved Blockbuster Rewards card, with the caption "It took about 15 tries but I was finally able to buy beer using my Blockbuster membership as proof of age."

He said that his successful beer purchase took place at a grocery store, and his willingness to be kind and rewind was all it took for the cashier to believe that he was of age. "She laughed," he wrote. "And said 'OK, you're old enough, damn.'"

The cashier might not have done the math in her head, instead just assuming that anyone who endured Turner & Hooch on VHS probably still needed a drink a couple of decades later, but she probably would've been right. In order to get a Blockbuster Rewards card from the long-defunct video-rental chain, you had to be at least 18 years old and provide a credit card, a utility bill, or a voter registration card with your application. Since all but a tiny handful of Blockbuster stores had closed by late 2013, it's a reasonably safe bet that even those who got a Blockbuster Rewards card during the chain's final days would be 21 by now.

So keep that argument in mind if you're ever trying to buy a six-pack of Sierra Nevada on the day you forgot your driver's license. I'll be keeping a Blockbuster card, a receipt from Circuit City, and a Pets.com stock certificate with me at all times. Anything so I don't have to keep pointing out my gray roots.