On Trying to Buy Beer at Wal-Mart

I grab a six-pack of Michelob Ultra Amber, meet Katie at the register. Set it on the counter. Have a lovely chat with the cashier. Then she picks up the beer. Asks for IDs.

As in, plural.

Katie doesn't have her purse.

Cashier Chick snatches the beer and hides it behind her register. “Sorry,” she says, not sounding sorry and sorta sounding happy. “Can’t sell you beer if you don’t both have your IDs.”

What? So, what if a parent comes in here with their kid, and wants to buy beer or wine or something?

"Well, it's usually pretty obvious if the kid will be drinking it."

What makes it obvious?

"Well, it's not always an easy thing to judge. You just sort of have to use your senses."

You sort of have to use your senses? You don’t say!

But the kid's not 21, right? And you're still letting the parent buy alcohol?

"Well, yeah, but—"

So what's the difference here? Why does she have to have her ID?

"Well, you are boyfriend and girlfriend, right?"

Husband and wife, actually. Been married about two years now. Out of college even longer than that.

"Well, she does look of age, and so—"

Well. Well. Well. She is of age, but she wouldn't drink this. She doesn't like beer. 

"Well, you could just be saying that. And she is the one paying for it."

No, I'm paying for it.

"Well, she touched it." 

No, she didn't. You saw me carry it up here and set it down right in front of you.

Meanwhile, the guy behind Katie is asking what's going on, and she tells him, and he says, Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. He brings his 17-year-old brother-in-law in here all the time. Buy beer all the time. They never ask for his ID.

I don’t care about policies. Every story has them. Whatever.

I care about dummies. I care about stupidly arbitrarily enforced rules. I get angry when things don’t make sense.

You wouldn’t like me when you don’t make sense.

Whatever, I tell the cashier. Let’s just leave. Ring me up. I'm not mad. I want to throw the pineapple we just bought at your stupid face, but I'm not mad. 

She rings me up. About $120 total. She takes my card. Swipes it. Never asks for my ID for that. Awesome. She debates me for five minutes about a $7 thing of beer. She won't check my ID when I'm paying for stuff with a card. Go figure that one.

Later, I go to Fresh Market later to get salmon. (I won’t buy just everything at Wal-Mart.) I also pick up a six-pack of Michelob Ultra Amber, along with a bottle of sauvignon blanc wine. Read somewhere it goes great with salmon. (They never asked for my ID.)

At home, Katie cooks us up an awesome meal. The Google was right: The sauvignon blanc is quite good with the salmon.

I soon quit caring about the Cashier Chick of Wal-Mart. Yes, The People of Wal-Mart* website exists for a reason. But I felt stupid for getting angry. For getting angry at a poor ol' Wal-Mart cashier probably scared of breaking some rule and just trying to hold down a job. I was grateful that she had was actually working. I was glad she wasn’t one of millions of other bums coasting by on unemployment. She wasn't too proud to take a job below what she could probably make in better economic times, and she wasn't so lazy as to mooch off the government's handouts, which are really her family's and neighbors' paychecks. 

*(Warning about PeopleOfWalMart.com: Don't go there unless you want to waste an hour of your life and then feel like a crappy person after.)

I also felt stupid because I still got my beer and wine. I still had a delicious meal with a beautiful woman. I lay on a huge comfortable couch after I ate myself silly. When the beer and wine made me sleepy, I lay with my beautiful woman in a huge comfortable bed. My sleep that night was like my life. So, so good. Blessed.