Here are two vignettes from my local supermarket.

For nearly a year and a half, I have been taking a daily supplement that contains green tea, curcumin, and resveratrol.  My favorite way to consume resveratrol is by drinking red wine, but every little bit extra helps.  Anyway, for the last several months, whenever I buy some of that red wine at my local QFC, they have asked for proof of age. 

I am well past normal retirement age and make no effort to appear younger than the great weight of years that I carry.  The reason they ask for proof of age has to be the supplement.  I buy it from Amazon.  I am thinking of posting a review.

If a busybody from the Kroger Corporation is reading this and notes that they have a policy of asking for photo ID from all of their valued customers who purchase alcohol, my reply is that I am not here to discuss your policy.  Just run your stores as well as you can and I’ll run this blog.

The second item I’ll mention occurred today.  I have the Kroger app on my phone.  Before checking out, I scan my fingerprint and a QR code appears on my phone.  Once a cashier scans the QR code, the bill is automatically charged to the card stored on the app.  It’s truly a time saver, even after you factor in the additional sixty seconds it takes most cashiers to get the store’s scanner to work.

As I waved my phone this time, the cheerful high-school-aged cashier said, “Look at you, using technology!”  I know she meant to be friendly, but her comment stung.  I thought about saying that she had been condescending and hurtful, but focusing on my feelings would have reinforced the worst habits of her generation.  I considered saying that I had been using technology since before she was born.  The irony might not have come off.  I expect she would have continued her campaign of condescension by saying “Good to know” or something like that.

In the end, I said nothing.  I accepted the insult.  Her condescension toward an old person is balanced by her fellow cashiers who insist on registering disbelief that I really am past my 21^st birthday whenever I try to get out of the store with a bottle of wine.  Things have a way of balancing themselves out over time.