Magazine ID

You know how annoying it can be when you forget some crucial form of ID – your passport or your driver's license. It can cause hassle, delay, embarrassment, or occasionally imprisonment.

Well, next time, try carrying around a magazine with a photo of you in it. Apparently, that works as a useful substitute. That's what the mayor of Charleston, West Virginia found when going through security checks at a California airport. Danny Jones found that he'd mislaid his driver's license, and so couldn't identify himself to board his flight.

His bags were searched by security guards at the airport – but he was only allowed to board when he remembered that there was a picture of him standing in Charleston in the copy of Charleston Magazine he had bought in Charleston, next to an article by him in his capacity as mayor of Charleston, welcoming people to Charleston.

The security screeners at the airport accepted the magazine photo as a legitimate form of identification.