Commercial Stupidity
I think I’m well preserved and youthful looking. Although I’m 68, I could easily pass for 64.
Today I stopped at Rite-Aid to buy a bottle of Bourbon, the better to cook pulled pork for tonight’s dinner.
The friendly clerk, wearing his Easter Bunny ears, insisted on seeing my ID. I said no. He said then you don’t get to buy your Bourbon. An impasse had been reached. I refuse to give in to these absurd depredations on my life.
The clerk assured me that this was inviolable corporate policy. I assured him that my, equally strict, policy was not to give in to corporate silliness. I expect to be treated with courtesy, not disdain. I’m doing them a favor by shopping there; they aren’t doing me one by condescending to sell me liquor if I prove myself to their satisfaction.
The rule-following appeasers of the world will tell me that I was being childish, that I should have just shown him the damned ID and been done with it. Perhaps so, but that’s how the camel gets his nose in the tent. I’m well over 21, as even a Rite-Aid clerk is smart enough to recognize, and I won’t be a party to their bullying.
The bad news is that now I have to go somewhere else to prepare for dinner. Bev-Mo, which sells a lot more booze than Rite-Aid, will treat me right. I’ll still have my self-respect, and Rite-Aid will still have a bottle of Jack Daniels in inventory.
Totally Unauthorized 
Odd, when in Memphis this week, I (the cougar) refused to show my id (Not in The Peabody) CP suggested I was being childish?
Thanks Manfred!
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
Walt Whitman
Several chains have the same requirement. I look at it this way– if my niece was a checker and she was reponsible for guessing the age of customers, it could create unnecessary pressure on her. If the policy is to always ask, there is no pressure and if it is policy and she bends it for you and you turn out to be a secret shopper, she could lose her job.