Ok...this is getting absolutely ridiculous! Consumer laws in place to protect buyers. I was okay with the concept when I went in some years ago to buy a can of spray paint to paint some patio furniture. Makes sense. People tagging buildings and train cars. Like alcohol it keeps it out of the hands of these idiots or at least make sure that the idiots who can buy it are old enough to prosecute. Understood. Got use to going to the counter and asking someone to open the cage where all the dangerous spray paints are!
Then I go some time ago to get to a decongestant. Can't find it because it ain't on the shelf anymore because some dumb-ass brain dead criminal(Walter White excepted), uses it to make meth. Have to have an ID in order to buy a box so I can have clear sinuses. Check! Which at first made me quizzical, then irritated that I have to pay for someone's stupidity and criminality. YES, I realize it is a MINOR inconvenience....but then....SO WHAT? Why should I be punished even with a minor inconvenience!!!
Well, today I go to my local store to get some things to do a quick clean out of my exhaust fan in the bathroom. I dusted it and was going to oil it a bit when I realized I had run out of my favorite man product...WD40...so there I went. As I was checking out, I had some dome light bulbs for my truck, a bag of jalapeno kettle chips for my son, and a can of WD40 and bottle of compressed air. You know the kind you clean off your keyboard and stuff with.
Anyway, I'm sliding things through the scanner and out of my peripheral vision comes a very large bearded attendant. He said, "sorry, I need to enter a code." "For what?" I said. "You bought a bottle of WD40 and a bottle of air. You have to be 18 to buy those." He said. I starred at him. He smiled and chuckled, "I know." he said.
Now, I look at it this way. If you are smart enough to hurt yourself with a small bottle of air and a can of what is essentially fish oil, then you are smart enough to keep yourself safe from it. I get the most obvious, puncturing the can or something. But I must say, all of the kids I know don't know enough to press the button on the can much less find something that would puncture it. Hell, when I was growing up, it was kids my age that would have hurt themselves, not because we were stupid but the sheer amount of time we had to fill was enormous. Today, kids have XBOX and Playstation and all sorts of physically harmless diversions that spend the majority of the day doing.
Yesterday, they're eating little packets of laundry soap in some sort of homicidal prank challenge. Tomorrow, we are having to show a license to buy books because someone got a paper cut.
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