Feb 14 2006
Fucking Farce!
Talk about a cock-up. Excuse my profanities.. I’m incredibly pissed off.
While Karl and I don’t usually do anything for Valentines Day (meh, just another day to me) we decided to do the 20 minute drive to the local supermarket to pick up a bottle of wine and some quick grub (and some chocolate, for me of course). So, get there.. grab a pizza, a garlic bread, a bottle of red and a mini bottle of white because I fancied something different.
Got to the till, and sorted out my clubcard (got to get them points for my discounts) and then of all things we’re asked: “have you got any ID?” WHAT THE FUCK? Now, had it been me they wanted ID for (bearing in mind I only just turned 20), I’d have not been bothered. Had it been a supermarket we’d never been to before, I’d not have been bothered.. but no. This is the supermarket that we got to at LEAST once a week, and a woman who has served us so many times she could probably reel off our weekly shopping list.
Karl got ID’ed. He is TWENTY-NINE in less than two months. That is almost ELEVEN fucking years older than the minimum age for being served with alchohol. In fact, add another five years to that because he’s not shaved today. Of course, not expecting to be asked, neither of us were carring ID. No ID = no wine. Thanks a bunch for pissing all over my evening, bitch.
The story does not end there. Oooh no no no. After fuming in the car for a good five minutes, doing a last minute search for ID and not finding any (because only idiots leave their documentation in the car in a high-crime area — i.e. where Karl works) we left the car park and headed up the road.. a road that is incredibly badly lit and surrounded by trees so quite dim at the best of times. What happens? We get a group of fucking teenage titheads run across the road in front of us — barely missing one by about 3 inches. If we’d have been going any faster than about 20mph, or Karl hadn’t been paying as much attention as he was we’d have hit the stupid bastard.
Do not even THINK that is the end. Fuck no: that lovely emergency brake has caused a dubious rattle to ‘appear’ under the car. Can’t tell if it’s the wheel or the exhaust but seriously.. if this requires a large bill to fix, well.. it’ll be Karl doing the bloody swearing I can tell you that for nothing.
Hmph. I feel a little better now I’ve sweared all that out. Best go and check on that pizza.
Warning
This post is over 6 months old. This means that, despite my best intentions, it may no longer be accurate. Age, motherhood, experience, loss... these things have all changed me from when this blog was started back in the heady (ha) days of my youth.
As much as I would like to go back and edit 10 years of archives to provide an insight into the 'me' of now — to update coding snippets and revise website advice — it would probably take years to do so (by which point I'd have to start again!) This would defeat the point of keeping these archives anyway.
Please take these posts for what they are: a brief look into my past, my history, my journey.
23 Responses so far
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Wow, didn’t you say anything about her having checked you out before? (well, not literally checked. o.O) That would piss me off to no end if that had happened. My dad nearly hit a teenager once when they decided they’d play ‘chicken’ of course, when he swirved he decided to reverse to scare those fuckers away.
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Karl wanted to reverse and go after the little shit, but I stopped him because there was a car behind us and about 10 of them. 2 vs. 10 = unfair fight. :P
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Haha, well – good point you bring up. :P
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I almost hit two dogs the other day. Here it’s because the snow banks are so damn high.
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Argh, I’m sorry to hear you’ve had such a crappy evening! :/ Silly checkout person, argh. Don’t those little signs say ‘Don’t be offended if you’re under 21 if we ask you your age’? You should have been very vocally offended! She was probably bitter that she was all alone on Valentines Day or something and just wanted to cause trouble?!
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Your anger was very exciting, if nothing else :P Just take it as a compliment. Kinda. Your story reminded me of mine, though: When my dad was 42 he got pulled over by a cop who thought he was too young to be driving (driving age here is 16) It was very weird.
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I’m not sure where the sale assistant was coming from if she already knows you, but perhaps the supermarket has had a bad experience and is now trying to be extra careful? I’ve been in that position when working behind a till (particularly while I was on a lottery terminal). I’m not very good at judging people’s ages, so I was asking for ID from anyone who looked as though they might be in the under-20 range. What else was there to do? If you slip up and sell to someone under-age, or a ‘secret shopper’ catches you not following the proper procedure, there can be serious consequences. It obviously can be very frustrating for customers, but it’s going to be inevitable sometimes – just try to take it as a useful reminder to carry ID :)
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As a side note: I’m about Karl’s age, and last week someone asked me if I was at school :)
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Most places here have signs that say, “If you look under 35 we will ID you” stuck all around, probably to avoid confrontations. That’s pretty crap that you’ve been through her line a bunch and she still tried to card you guys, though. Lame-o.
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Never really had any experience about the ID thing (me are too young), but the road kill. Arrgh, my parents drive carefully, but sometimes people keep playing ‘chicken’ not realizing the crap they’re getting into. But most of the time, those lil’ 5 year olds run out to the streets as soon as the car is about to go there and my parents stop JUST in time. I always notice that that kid’s parent isn’t even paying attention until they hear the brakes.
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hah ur like sooo funnny! i mean it really
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Eh, if they knew you at the supermarket they should have just let you get the wine. From what I hear, underage drinking in Britain isn’t really such a big deal? I hate it when people run across the street like that :|
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Perhaps the sales person got in trouble for not carding? It’s always a possibility. I’m sure she felt awkward carding you, especially when it threw you off since you didn’t have ID. Anyway, Happy Valentine’s Day.
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I hope that pizza tasted exceptionally good with all of that hassle you had to put into it! That ID problem reminds me of the time André was carded when trying to enter a club here in Germany. The guy’s freaking 29 years old and is carded…in GERMANY??! Luckily he had ID with him. He said he took it as a compliment because he must look much younger than he really is. Heh…but I stand very firm in believing that if teenagers are dumb enough to “play” around on the road, they deserve to be hit. There’s a group of them who live a few streets away from me that do that same crap all the time. As soon as they see a car coming, they run out onto the road in front of you, which makes it even more tempting to just roll over them. People like that DESERVE to be flattened – would teach their parents to teach their children how to behave properly near the road.
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I second what Gemma said, because unless that checkout cashier is a complete nitwit, it doesn’t make any sense. As for teenagers trying to make last minute dashes across the road with oncoming traffic, I hear you. Yesterday morning an 18-year-old was trying to read a road map while driving through the railway crossing and his car was hit by a train. He died. I saw the pieces of car and the fire trucks on my way to school, I swear it had to be one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen in my life (Mum had to drive through the scene of the accident). Some kids who saw the car get hit were so disturbed that they took the day off. It just goes to show that it is worth it to pay attention on the roads…
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In york everyone carries I.D now – me and my boyfriend are both 20 but get I.D’d everywhere – for bars, clubs, offliciences. Makes me laugh when I see the blatently 17 year old ‘pretty’ girls with next to no clothes on and imaculate hair… They must be allowed in because of the dumbass bouncers thinking they’re fit… oh they couldn’t possibly be underage?
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ugh, sorry your day got ruined. Sounds horrible. :( And a 29 year old being carded?! Well, that’s a first.
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Bad, BAD day. O_o I guess the lesson is; bring an ID with you wherever you go? I haven’t been bringing my I/C around either, mainly because it won’t fit in my small coin purse, which I also use as a wallet =T, so I finally just made a foldable copy of it. Drivers really need to make sure they bring all their stuff even for a short drive, though. Many police checks around.
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Feels good to rant, doesn’t it? That’s what blogs are for…and I hate days like that. Thankfully they don’t usually happen very often so I hope today is better :D
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Ack, that sounds crappy. I hate getting ID’d so much. I’m surprised Karl got ID’d, what was this woman thinking? I was hoping it wasn’t Sean who served you. Well, he wouldn’t have been that idiotic.
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Same thing happened to me not too long ago. It was after I had Sam, so I must’ve been 26+. Same supermarket, too. I just stood there and cried, “Are you KIDDING?! I HAVE A CHILD! AND A MORTGAGE! AND A TEN YEAR RELATIONSHIP! GIVE ME MY BEEER!” She was so stunned she must’ve realised I was genuine and gave in!! V xx
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I’m expecting to be ID’d until I’m about 25. I still get ID’d when I buy my mum tobacco.
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lol this is what blogs are for – good fucking rants!
