Could I have your birthdate?
You could, but it would be a remarkable coincidence.
That’s part of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with the cashier at the supermarket. I was buying some cough medicine, along with chicken, carrots, corn, mouthwash, and those Riesen candies, which are insanely delicious but sometimes get stuck in my teeth. She asked me for my birthdate because I was buying cough medicine to help me get rid of a nagging cough. I guess there are a lot of addictive ingredients in cough medicine, and they want to make sure I’m not 16 years old and sharing it with my buddies on a Friday night.
I gave my age, and she punched the numbers into the register.
I was a little surprised by her question. Not completely, because I know that CVS and other stores are locking up razor blades, something else that’s maddening, but it’s odd that an adult has to prove their age at the supermarket when it’s just one item among 30 others that they’re buying. Cough medicine is something that people have bought for a century with no problem.
Apparently, I can buy sharp knives and painkillers and dangerous, corrosive cleaning fluids and not have to prove my age, but buying cough medicine is beyond the pale.
I paid by debit card, and I was wondering what would have happened if I had tried to pay with cash. Would they have looked at me funny? Maybe they would have thought I was paying in cash because I didn’t want any kind of electronic trail tied to my name when buying cough medicine. Like I was making a drug deal.
Do they really think I’m going to get hooked on a cough suppressant? There are so many other better-tasting substances I could take too much of (and have), why would I choose Formula 44? Do I look that desperate? And just because I’m old enough, why does that prove to the store that I’m not going to use the cough medicine incorrectly? Do only underage people abuse it?
When I buy alcohol at the liquor store, they don’t ask me for my birthdate. They don’t even ask for an ID anymore, because of my baldness and the specks of white in my beard. I haven’t had to show a proof of age in probably 30 years. I could buy 75 bottles of Plymouth Gin, a box of matches, and a book on the history of arson, and they wouldn’t bat an eye. But I have to prove I’m of age when I buy something to help me get over a cough.
And I didn’t have to show my ID to this cashier either. She simply believed me when I told her my birthdate, or she didn’t care because she probably has to ask the question several times a day. I could have said anything that sounded realistic. November 9, 1972! March 13, 1980! August 22, 1946!
Okay, I hope she would have questioned that last one. I don’t look that old.
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