But think of how much effort Stanley must have put into this one. It's hard work to be pithy and brief.
What happened to 40 comments and a mule?
Specifically, this part:
Since gas dusters are one of the many inhalants that can be easily abused, many manufacturers have added a bittering agent to deter people from inhaling the product. Because of the generic name "canned air", some people mistakenly believe that the can only contains normal air or contains a less harmful substance known as nitrous oxide. However, the gases actually used are denser than air, and inhaling can lead to paralysis, serious injury, or death. Recently, in the United States and Canada stores have begun to ask for ID to verify if the customer is 18 years or older (some include Fred Meyer, Office Max, Office Depot, Staples, RadioShack, Walgreens, Canadian Tire, Shopko, Target, and Wal-Mart).
Teo doesn't know how to enforce a directive.
So it's a store policy, not a law? I'm surprised that it can be legal for a store to refuse to sell a product to minors, if it's not a product that's age-restricted by law.
Granted, I've only ever seen pictures of Stanley (at least, I think I have? If not, I wonder who I am thinking of), but, uh ... in what universe does he look under 18?
11: I got carded for buying a tiny container of superglue when I was in my late 20s. Nobody could possibly have thought I was a teenager.
Those things terrify me. I am scared of ice cold gas hitting my hot glassoid electronics.
I use q-tips. Cotton swabs.
I was an occasional paint-sniffer during the 70s. The silver and gold were the best. Lousy, desperate high.
13.1: It's actually pretty trippy, Bob.
14: Looks like you'd recognize the feeling.
12: Yeah, at 27 I still get carded all the time when buying alcohol. But I figure that's just college town policy.
I feel most terrible about the pacing indiscretion. I really shouldn't have been huffing those things.
Don't worry about it in the slightest. It's not as if I've been posting so much that there's a danger of a post getting missed.
10
So it's a store policy, not a law? I'm surprised that it can be legal for a store to refuse to sell a product to minors, if it's not a product that's age-restricted by law.
I would be surprised if stores have to sell anything to minors. Remember minors can't make binding contracts (except possibly for the necessities of life).
I have one of the bike-pump refillable cans that that article mentions at the bottom. It's great, and I haven't needed to buy another in five years or so.
10: What would stop them from selling to minors, or people under 21, or under 40? Unless your cutoff was 65, I suspect there's very little to call a protected class.
18: I really shouldn't have been huffing those things while riding with no hands on a nice bike I bought up for $30.
25: I think, actually, that that method could be quite effective. It remains to be seen if it is, in practice, faster.
I was carded - at 49! - at a Gang of Four show a few years ago. Okay, parts of the venue were all-ages, parts serving alcohol - where I was headed - were age-restricted, but although I look much younger than my actual age, at 49 I certainly didn't look 21.
At the first of the stores named in the citation in 7, I, in my mid-30s, was carded while purchasing a six-pack of beer. What was particularly galling was that it was non-alcoholic beer*, and the inherent authoritarianism of the whole thing is a large part of the reason I don't shop there.
*A Lenten lapse of taste.
The silver and gold were the best.
Patrick Tribett agrees with you.
"Blum said gold or silver paints have a higher concentration of toluene, a chemical that produces a high."
afaik, a store can have any silly rule it likes for who it won't sell something to, except for racial discrimination.
i mean, wasn't that part of the thing with pharmacists declining to dispense planB?
The UK has recently moved to a "if they look under 25, card them" policy. It had previously been 21. The drinking age, as always, is 18. I don't know why they can't just let it be if "if they look under 18," then.
I'm really annoyed. At 28, I'd just gotten to the point where I reliably looked over 21. And then they jack it up to 25. Groan.
I got asked for ID when buying a cheap pack of cutlery the other day. I didn't have any, but used the fact that I was also buying a thermos flask as proof that I could not be under 18.
And then I went into a different shop and bought a very sharp kitchen knife and didn't get queried at all.
re: 34
Actually, the drinking age can sometimes be 16. Although people forget that.
re: 35
Must be quite flattering to get queried? I can't remember the last time I was ID'd. Some time in the 1980s, I think (seriously).
@36
Right, if you're in a pub, ordering a meal, and accompanied by an adult you can have a cider or something, right?
re: 38
You don't actually have to have an adult with you. Over 16 and ordering a meal you can have beer, cider or wine, iirc. I'd imagine a lot of restaurants enforce 18, but they don't actually have to.
One day you youngsters will learn to relish the moments you get carded. I used to get carded buying cigarette from time to time. I swear it's half the reason it was hard to quit.
In Germany, kids could order beer or wine at 16, with or without an adult, iirc. Either that or all my pupils over there were bold little drunks.
35 - more risible than flattering really (I mean, I'm not a wizened crone, but I don't look under 25 let alone 18), and she didn't quibble when I said I had no ID.
I was asked my age in the first pub we went to on my 21st birthday. The barman was slightly taken aback when I shook him warmly by the hand and said, "Thank you, that's a lovely thing to say." But I didn't get the round comped.
Most people with any self respect in Britain can get a drink in a pub from about the age of 15, for some values of "pub".
I'm with asilon. Really? Seriously? I could pass for somewhere in my mid-20s on a good day, but there's no way I'm under legal age.
Once, after having been in Germany for 16 months, I was back in Cambridge and went to my old wine store. I took a bottle of wine to the counter and the lady there (the owner of the store, I think) brightly said, "You used to buy this particular wine here all the time!" I assented that yes, this was so, and was basking in the glow of being back home and being recognized, when she demanded to see my ID. ???????
At the beer wagon they haul out to city parks and street festivals, there's a rule that they have to check everyone's ID. I'm sure no one actually reads drivers license, but I do have to wave it at them.
A lot of stores' registers seem to be programmed to require input of birth-year for purchase of cigarettes/alcohol. Often, they just ask the year instead of asking for I'd. I assume it's risk management to protect the stores from fines for selling to the underaged.
I was IDed once for cigarettes when I was in New York two years ago. I'm nearly 30.
Stanley:
Do you have your hippie beard?
(Dr. Ho's for us this weekend! After our ass-kicking by Bill and Mary.)
Yeah, I started going to pubs at 14. By the time I was 16 I just assumed I wouldn't get age-checked. I had long hair, and wore make-up and things. Everyone assumed I was much older.
I'm told I can pass for younger than I actually am, but only an insane person would think I was under 25.
I'm in my mid-30's, hairline in active retreat, bald spot, facial hair, etc., and I sometimes get carded when ordering a cocktail. I always comment that they must really want a good tip because that request for ID is the nicest thing anyone's said all week. In truth I always assume that they just got fined or had a near miss or something of that sort which has caused them to go into full-on paranoia mode. I haven't looked under 21 since I was 15.
When I smoked I'd get carded every once in a great while when buying cigarettes, too, but I always assumed that meant someone had just gotten canned for selling to a minor.
Since Stanley is about 25, it isnt that surprising that he got carded. Kids these days! Twenty-five year olds: "oooooh, I got carded and I am SOOO old!!"
Asilon:
You cant buy a knife without being a certain age?
53. What's the law on tobacco sales in America? I always assumed that as a major producer it would be dead liberal.
It's twentysomething speak for "but I'm a big boy now!"
What's the law on tobacco sales in America?
18+
56: It's by state, but it's 18 in basically all of them, I think. It changed in North Carolina when I was in high school; prior to that I think NC had no age limit at all or it was something like 14. My high school had a smoking lounge for students when my oldest sister was in high school in the late '70s.
55. 18 for both ciggies and knives here. But only very recently. The tobacco lobby held out to keep the age at 16 until 2007; the knife thing was a Rupert Murdoch driven moral panic after some kid was killed in a gang fight.
I've gotten implausibly carded in the past (hasn't happened in a couple of years, but definitely into my thirties) and I figure it's mostly someone who launched into the sentence asking for ID before actually looking at me with any kind of attention.
prior to that I think NC had no age limit at all or it was something like 14
If there was an age limit in NC back then, it sure as hell wasn't enforced.
Same in NY -- when I was a young teen, clearly not passing for any age other than under, Mom would occasionally send me to the store for cigarettes and I'd never have a problem buying them. Either there was no age, it was generally unenforced, or our drugstore was run by scofflaws.
In Cz, my wife used to run across the village with a couple of jars to fill with beer at the pub to bring back for her dad. Aged about 5, or something. I don't think that happens any more, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Going back a bit, Mrs OFE's grandfather told her how, as a child during prohibition, he used to be sent to get licquor from the speakeasy, and how, before he went, he had to repeat back to his dad EXACTLY where his sig. was on the wall.
My wife still resents the day I got carded, had no ID, and then the kid said "Oh, that's all right ma'am, I didn't know he was with you."
66 reminds me of a story:
"MY NAME IS ALICE SMITH. I WAS SITTING IN THE WAITING ROOM FOR MY FIRST APPOINTMENT WITH A NEW
> DENTIST.
>
>
> I NOTICED HIS DDS DIPLOMA, WHICH BORE HIS FULL NAME.
>
>
> SUDDENLY, I REMEMBERED A TALL, HANDSOME, DARK-HAIRED BOY WITH THE
> SAME NAME HAD BEEN IN MY HIGH SCHOOL CLASS SOME 30-ODD YEARS AGO.
>
>
> COULD HE BE THE SAME GUY THAT I HAD A SECRET CRUSH ON, WAY
> BACK THEN? UPON SEEING HIM, HOWEVER, I QUICKLY DISCARDED ANY
> SUCH THOUGHT.
>
>
> THIS BALDING, GREY-HAIRED MAN WITH THE DEEPLY LINED
> FACE WAS WAY TOO OLD TO HAVE BEEN MY CLASSMATE. AFTER HE
> EXAMINED MY TEETH, I ASKED HIM IF HE HAD ATTENDED MORGAN PARK HIGH
> SCHOOL .
>
>
> 'YES. YES, I DID. I'M A MUSTANG,' HE GLEAMED WITH PRIDE.
>
>
> 'WHEN DID YOU GRADUATE?' I ASKED.
>
>
> HE ANSWERED, 'IN 1975. WHY DO YOU ASK?'
>
>
> 'YOU WERE IN MY CLASS!', I EXCLAIMED.
>
>
> HE LOOKED AT ME CLOSELY.
>
>
> THEN, THAT UGLY, OLD, BALD, WRINKLED, FAT ASS, GREY-HAIRED, DECREPIT,
> SON-OF-A-BITCH ASKED, 'WHAT DID YOU TEACH?' "
I got carded for cigarettes about two weeks ago. It wasn't one of those cases where the guy is flirting or they just had a bust---he was genuinely taken aback when he saw my id. I really don't look that young: it was somewhat dark, I was wearing lots of blush, and the humidity probably made me look weirdly fresh-faced. It's pretty obvious when the clerks or cashiers are just following store policy about ID.
Whole Foods requires its cashiers to ask everyone for ID. some people find this flattering; sometimes the 80 year-olds get pissed. Certain supervisors are allowed to let people who look over 30 or 35 buy without an ID, though they do get a bit of a lecture, but they don't want the cashiers to have to use any discretion.
Boston recently banned drugstores from selling cigarettes. It sort of makes sense, since drugstores are supposed to be about health.
Do you have your hippie beard?
I just took a #4 Wahl razor to all the hair on my head. I look remarkably unhippy-like.
"oooooh, I got carded and I am SOOO old!!"
It wasn't so much the getting carded; it was the getting carded for a fucking computer duster, but the reasons for that were suggested above.
I buy all of my alcohol under the name of McLovin.
I buy all of my alcohol computer dusters ...
Upon watching Superbad, I was genuinely kind of freaked out by how much McLovin appeared to be my dopplegänger.
"Boston recently banned drugstores from selling cigarettes. It sort of makes sense, since drugstores are supposed to be about health. "
Yeah, that's always struck me as a bit odd. You can't buy ciggies in Boots or Superdrug over here, but I don't know if it's the law or a self-imposed image thing. I suppose it makes more sense in the US, as drugstores seem to perform many of the same functions that newsagents/cornershops do in the UK.
75: Yeah, a CVS or Duane Reade or even a local apothecary (increasingly rare, as these things get chain-ified) tends to be like a corner store that happens to have a licensed professional dispensing prescription drugs in the back.
I had to pause Superbad after the McLovin part, because I couldn't stop laughing at it and was missing the next jokes.
I bet you got carded because your hippie hair is gone, Stanley. Now all is explained.
When I was a teen, in my state the age requirement for cigarettes was definitely 18, but it was only illegal to sell them to minors, not to buy them as a minor, AND the law explicitly allowed vendors to rely on a customer's word to verify age, unless doing so was manifestly unreasonable (which, as far as I can recall, must have only applied to people under the age of 10 or so). So everyone asked if you were 18, but no one carded anyone. Also, there were vending machines everywhere anyway, so it didn't really matter.
I think they stiffened all that up about the same time I turned 18.
OTOH, I was more than once run out of convenience stores when I tried to buy condoms, since I wasn't wearing a wedding ring. So.
OTOH, I was more than once run out of convenience stores when I tried to buy condoms, since I wasn't wearing a wedding ring.
You should have said you were buying them for your parents.
You should have said you were buying them for your parents.
"I mean, look at me. Can you blame them?"
Just read the wiki article. I believe you should feel ashamed, Stanley:
Difluoroethane (HFC-152a), trifluoroethane (HFC-143a), and tetrafluoroethane (HFC-134a) are potent greenhouse gases. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global warming potential (GWP) of HFC-152a, HFC-143a, and HFC-134a are 124, 4,470, and 1,430, respectively.[1] This means that 1 can of HFC-143a has the same global warming impact of 4,470 cans of carbon dioxide.
Most brands now claim to be ozone friendly, a separate issue from the global warming concern.
4,470 cans!
82: The stuff I bought claims to be "non-ozone depleting"—it's depleting the non-ozone!
It also has the notice: "All [Brand X] Air Duster products contain bitterant to help discourage inhalant abuse." I don't know why, but I find "bitterant" amusing.
it's depleting the non-ozone!
I think you mean the nono-zone. It's full of toddlers.
66: My wife was 13 when her youngest sister was born. People routinely asked if she was the mother and their mother, the grandmother.
84: Shouldn't the nono zone be devoid of toddlers?
Re 88: But believe me, you don't even want to think about trying to enter via the chimney.
88: I know, right? Like how I missed the opportunity to tittle this "The Huffing Ton Post".
Now we know what posting "Stanley style" looks like.
He even shaved off all the hair on his chinny-chin-chin.
"The Huffing Ton Post"
Equally fitting for a post about being unable to climb hills.
Also, there were vending machines everywhere anyway, so it didn't really matter.
At first I was surprised that there was a cigarette vending machine in the lobby of my freshman dorm, then grateful, then disappointed that everything in it was about as stale as a bale of hay.
70: Drug stores sell all manner of health damaging crap, at least they do around here. You can buy alcohol, candy, all manner of horrible frozen foods, nasty and harmful "beauty" products and on and on. This reeks to me of the anti-smoking Carrie Nations running out of things to freak out over. It's the classic trajectory of do-gooderism: Start by addressing real serious problems, move on to less serious but still real problems, and finally start in with plain old busybodying. MADD is in the late stages of this, and it's clear that the anti-smoking crusaders are headed there as well.
What's weird around here, and I think it must be a relatively new development, is that drugstores can sell alcohol but grocery stores can't. The local Rite-Aid devotes about a third of its floor space to aisle after aisle of liquor.
Can grocery stores there sell beer and wine?
Not being able to buy tequila in the grocery store is just uncivilized.
It seems like it used to be that only liquor stores could sell any kind of alcohol, which makes as much sense as blue laws can, and there are still plenty of liquor stores around, but some (not all) drugstores, particularly newer-looking ones, also sell alcohol, which implies that the law probably changed recently. I dunno; one person I talked to who grew up in the state was surprised to hear about the drugstore thing.
102: Tell me about it.
All this stuff about who can sell what kinds of alcohol is pretty weird to me, accustomed as I am to New Mexico, where you can buy hard liquor in gas stations.
Yeah, being able to buy booze in the grocery store almost makes up for some of the other third-world stuff around here. Or at least it helps to dull the pain.
Huh. I've been looking through the regulations, and it doesn't look like there's any restriction on liquor stores selling additional merchandise, which would seem to allow any type of store to apply for a permit. There's a strict limit on new licenses issued based on local population, though, with existing liquor stores grandfathered in, so it could just be impossible in practice for a new supermarket to get a license. Maybe the Rite-Aid just managed to jump through the hoops just right to get licensed as a liquor store.
All this stuff about who can sell what kinds of alcohol is pretty weird to me, accustomed as I am to New Mexico, where you can buy hard liquor in gas stations.
In Australia, they have drive-thru booze shops. Now that's screwed up.
around here the grocery can sell beer/wine but not hard booze. they have things like premixed marguiritas or other liquor type things that have a wine-like etoh level.
Don't get me started on the ass-hackery that is Pennsylvania liquor laws.
In Australia, they have drive-thru booze shops.
There's at least one in Wyoming, and I've heard of them elsewhere in the US, Montana maybe. In Montana, there's also no open container law; as long as your BAC is under .08, you can drink while driving.
111: PA is pretty goofy. I remember arriving to play a show in Philly and being advised, "Oh, yeah, and if you guys are gonna want some beer later, you probably ought to go now. You can either walk a couple blocks to the beer distributor or hit the Chinese restaurant across the street."
I've heard of them elsewhere in the US, Montana maybe.
I know of at least one in North Dakota.
In Montana, there's also no open container law; as long as your BAC is under .08, you can drink while driving
I seem to recall someone saying this changed recently which made me sad.
They keep having experiments to see if it is feasible to sell beer in groceries or whatnot. When you have something that only 48 states have tried, you want to be careful before you start.
There used to be drive-up liquor stores in New Mexico, but they banned them a while back.
The idea of being able to buy alcohol in a store where you can also buy other things sounds bizarrely decadent to me. Like walking down the street and seeing naked people, or something.
I don't think I look under 21, but I apparently look much younger than my age, so on those rare occasions when go somewhere where they card, I expect to get carded. I don't always get carded, though.
I should say it "seems", not "sounds", since I've actually been in such stores before. They made me feel pretty nervous, though.
66: My wife was 13 when her youngest sister was born. People routinely asked if she was the mother and their mother, the grandmother.
I know it's dangerous to generalize about old movies, but when I was watching lots of them, I noticed that not infrequently when the main characters were siblings, they had a big gap in their ages. It seemed to be a device to have the older sibling old enough for an adult-age romantic plot while also being a parental-type figure - which allowed for a protecting a child plot - without being adulterous, divorced, or widowed.
Probably if I sat down and counted, it would turn out I've seen, maybe, 2 movies like this. I can only think of one right now. But I remember having had this thought once.
There used to be drive-up liquor stores in New Mexico, but they banned them a while back.
I suppose it's appropriate for this thread that we just got stopped at a DUI/driver's license check checkpoint. What a waste of everyone's time (and civil rights).
There was a guy back home who argued, successfully, that a specific DUI checkpoint was created just to get him and was therefore an illegal search. The police announced the checkpoint as required, but he didn't get the paper and they knew it. The road for the check point was one that would have been used by people going to his house and very few others, none of whom were out at 1:00 a.m.
On the one hand, yea civil liberties. On the other hand, taking away this guy's driver's license was not a particularly bad idea.
I can't decide if I should be concerned about all the secondhand cigarette smoke that blows into my room from the smoker roommate smoking outside. I've basically decided to move at the end of the term, but maybe I should do that earlier.
How is the smoke getting in? Through the window?
Yes. Because of the orientation of the apartment, that's how the wind seems to go nearly all the time.
The idea of being able to buy alcohol in a store where you can also buy other things sounds bizarrely decadent to me.
Yeah, it always feels faintly scandalous to me when I'm in other states and the liquor is just sitting out there. In public! In the grocery store! Omigod!
Intellectually I know that my experience is entirely unrepresentative of the rest of the country (sorry, Massachusetts). But logistically, 99.99% of my shopping experiences have been in this state, so it feels like the others are the exception.
Although it is also true that I repeatedly fail the basic host courtesy of memorizing the hours and location of the nearest liquor store. More than once I've been frantically wracking my brains trying to think where it is. Once it turned out to be a block from my office. Oops. I know I walked past it every day for months, but I was distracted. Those PSAs are weird!
I'm pretty sure I get smoke from other tenants too. This building might be a smokers' haven.
(Incidentally, the management company randomly and periodically sends in a dog patrol looking for drugs, but I haven't smelled any pot yet.)
(Incidentally, the management company randomly and periodically sends in a dog patrol looking for drugs, but I haven't smelled any pot yet.)
Well, that's why they use the dog patrol and not the eb patrol.
I can close my window and door, but a small bit of smoke still gets in through other windows and doors. The real problem is my roommate is not a window/door closer and I'm not going to go around monitoring the smoke and opening and closing windows and doors all the time. Also, apparently the previous tenant was a chain smoker.
You know, when someone writes "not a smoker" on a housing ad, don't answer it if you smoke, and if you smoke, disclose it. It's my fault for not asking.
Yeah, it always feels faintly scandalous to me when I'm in other states and the liquor is just sitting out there. In public! In the grocery store! Omigod!
That's more or less how I felt the first time I saw absinthe in a supermarket.
They keep having experiments to see if it is feasible to sell beer in groceries or whatnot.
This is how you know capitalism is not all powerful.
My understanding of the Pennsylvania situation is that there's a lot of political pressure to maintain the status quo from the small but influential group of people who benefit from it. This seems like the only way such a bizarre system could continue to exist for so long.
134: Yes, and it's also not that small. The state store jobs are good ones, and often go to people in neighborhoods with precious few other well-paying, secure jobs with health benefits.
I like the category of "consular liquor." Iit reminds me of the special category during Prohibition for Eucharist wine.
131: I really dislike the smell of smoke, especially stale smoke. That sounds intolerable.
The odd thing is that I didn't notice extremely stale smoke in the room when I first got here. It's been a few months since the chain smoker left and the carpet was either replaced or heavily treated and the room was repainted. I suspect the stale smoke is all new stale smoke.
In small doses, cigarette smoke makes me think of my grandmother sitting outside on her back porch, smoking, when my sister and I were really young, right before she quit completely.
||
I'm on a BOAT! bus with internet access. I feel it is somehow my duty to comment under these circumstances, even if it is 6am and I've nothing substantive to add.
|>
Are you counting the cars on the whatever turnpike?
No turnpike yet. We're not even out of Virginia.
No turnpike yet.
Free highways? Socialism!
The state's evil Traffic Panels dare to make highway decisions for you. It's unbearable.
People die on those very highways. All the time! You're lucky to be alive.
And speaking of which, where's teo? He hasn't posted for 7 or 8 hours at least. How many more must die while we slumber?
And yes, I'm up early to better avoid packing the car and completing some work stuff that I was too irresponsible* to finish yesterday. Why do you ask?
*But now I'm almost 90% done with an airtight rationalization that it can be easily done early tomorrow morning from my folk's house. Good progress!
Ontario is kind of weird. They have the LCBO (state store), but you can also buy Ontario-made wines in independent specialty shops.
The Beer Store is owned by the big beer makers, so you can buy other brands, but they are not at all well displayed. Recently, I had to ask specifically about Hoegarten which isn't exactly a microbrew. I think that they might have a couple out front, but everything is chilled, so most of it is out back, unlike the SAQ in Quebec.
Massachusetts allows beer and wine sales in grocery stores, but no single company can have more than 3 stores selling alcohol, so the big supermarkets all pick 3 locations where they want to sell alcohol.
New Hampshire is convenient, because they have stat liquor stores on either side of the turnpike.
Oh no! They've killed Stanley.
I'm alive but about to be in Delaware, so I feel dead inside.
Random internet knowledge accrued so far: The Dead Sea is an endorheic lake? What's that? Oh, neat!
149: And close to going over this bridge, right?
The Dead Sea is an endorheic lake?
Nice word. I didn't know it although the discussions here on state high points the other day had me thinking about the concept of endoheric basins and their relative scarcity* in the US, and how that causes the almost certain placement of state lowest points on a border.
*Although across the world they they take up more land area than I would have guessed.. And even in the US, the whole Great Basin is one, but only California has a state low point in the middle of one. (Ignoring the artificially-created low point in New Orleans.)
150: We just went over that bridge. It was nice to be a passenger and not a driver.
What? Don't you want to control your own choices of whether your vehicle plunges into the icy water or not?
Honestly, it's a miracle the state-directed transit economy didn't cause the bridge to collapse right out from under us.
And speaking of which, where's teo?
Early Saturday morning is not a time when it's likely I'll be around.
I bought one today and wasn't carded.
Early Saturday morning is not a time when it's likely I'll be around.
Binge drinking is bad news, young teo.