The weirdest thing happened to me today. (yes, even amidst the near-monotony of Easter term!)<\/p>\n
Fresh from a grueling Sunday morning workout at the Physical Ed. Department at Fenner’s, I was went to the local ‘supermart’, Sainsbury’s to get shop for groceries and buy my lunch (my college dining hall is unfortunately closed on Sunday lunchtimes). At the checkout, I was minding my own business while the cashier scanned the bar-codes of the items I bought and placed them in the plastic bag.<\/p>\n
And then….<\/p>\n
‘Sir, can I see some ID?’<\/p>\n
I thought I heard wrongly. ‘I’m sorry, could you please come again?’<\/p>\n
‘an ID, sir. You need an ID to buy this.’<\/p>\n
Now, on a normal day, you would most likely encounter this phrase if you were trying to buy alcoholic beverages from the supermart. But, for those who know me, I abstain from alcohol.<\/p>\n
Was I trying to surreptitiously buy some booze to relieve exam-induced stress?<\/p>\n
Of course NOT! You didn’t think I’d go against my own principles, did you?<\/p>\n
‘I think you’re mistaken. I’m not buying any alcohol…’<\/p>\n
Holding the can of ‘Blue Bolt’, the cashier nonchalantly told me ‘You need an ID to buy this drink. It’s only for sale to those above 18’.<\/p>\n
For those of you who don’t know, Blue Bolt is a type of energy drink, something akin to Red Bull (only cheaper, because it’s an in-store brand).<\/p>\n
Now, this was not the first time I was buying such a drink. And NEVER in my wildest imagination have I thought that I would need an ID to prove I’m above 18, just so that I can buy ……..a can of Blue Bolt!<\/p>\n
‘What? I didn’t know you need to be above 18 to buy that drink. There’s no alcohol in it!’<\/p>\n
‘Well, rules are rules. You need an ID’<\/p>\n
Fumbling my wallet for some form of ID, I tried to find something that showed my date of birth, but to no avail.
\n‘Do you have a driver’s license?’<\/p>\n
‘Nope’<\/p>\n
‘A passport?’<\/p>\n
‘Nope. (who the heck brings a passport while shopping for groceries anyway? :D) Uhm.. do you accept my university student card? It has my date-of-birth’ written on it’<\/p>\n
‘Sorry sir, only a valid driver’s license or a passport. Anything else won’t do. If you don’t have any ID to prove you’re over 18, I’m sorry but I can’t sell you this drink.’<\/p>\n
Just then, in an ending befitting deux ex machina<\/em> , another cashier turned back and told the Mr-I-Want-an-ID-for-this-can-of-BlueBolt that anyone above 16, not 18, can buy that drink. And since in the UK, all university students are above 16, I was free to buy it without needing to show any proof of my date of birth.<\/p>\n Mr-I-Want-an-ID-for-this-can-of-BlueBolt then grinned sheepishly at me, and proceeded to scan the BlueBolt.<\/p>\n After completing my payment, I walked out of the store feeling bewildered. Never can I imagine the UK government prohibiting under-16s from buying or consuming an energy drink. (maybe those kids are hyperactive enough and don’t need any BlueBolt or Red Bull anyway).<\/p>\n As I stepped out of the store, I looked at the can of Blue Bolt.<\/p>\n ‘High Voltage Stimulation Drink’<\/p>\n ‘Contains Taurine’<\/p>\n ‘High in Caffeine content. 30 mg\/100 ml’.<\/p>\n Then I knew why. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The weirdest thing happened to me today. (yes, even amidst the near-monotony of Easter term!) Fresh from a grueling Sunday morning workout at the Physical Ed. Department at Fenner’s, I was went to the local ‘supermart’, Sainsbury’s to get shop for groceries and buy my lunch (my college dining hall is unfortunately closed on Sunday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":491,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/491"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shenhanlee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}