I was born in 1977. It’s not very often clerks ask to see my I.D. Obviously, I take no offense to the request when it does happen. Today the CVS clerk suspiciously looked me up and down when he scanned the one item I was buying.

To put that another way, the CVS check out clerk needed to verify that I, a 35 year old male, was old enough to purchase a cough and chest congestion medicine. Needless to say, I was buying it for my grandmother. I wonder if the clerk would have let the whole “seeing my I.D.” thing slide if I had promised him the medicine wasn’t for me, but for my 90 year old grandmother who’s at home coughing up mucus* that could be mistaken for dirty antifreeze.

Then it hit me!

The clerk thought I was the unabomber and had assumed I would extract the alcohol from robutussin to manufacture home made pipe bombs. Or something like that.

Either way, it’s quite flattering to think that I could pass as an underage hoodlum looking for a cheap high off over the counter cough syrup.

Thanks, CVS dude!

*There seems to be some confusion about the use of the word “mucus”. Is it “mucus” or “mucous”? Allow the Grammarist to slap some knowledge on you.