Cloth Bag Ranting and other issues...

[sirwired]

What size bottle of vanilla extract (as it's called here) do you sell? The size bottles commonly sold here couldn't be more than a half-dozen drinks, even if it were pure grain.

The "standard" alcohol-based mouthwash here, Listerine, does indeed contain diluted grain alcohol (rather than wood alcohol), about 22% or so. However, there is no ID required, and it isn't taxed like a drink, because the other things in it that make it an antiseptic mouthwash (menthol and eucalyptol) also make it undrinkable. You would probably feel very sick and vomit before your body could even process the alcohol.

Chugging rubbing alcohol though... damn, that's desparate.

SirWired

[Bramblerose]

YOur little alkies would luuuuurve my vanilla flavoring- 3/4 c mid-range vodka and a vanilla bean. Put both in a bottle and let sit for 4 months.

[fireheart]

OK, I shall explain a little bit more about why we're required to check for ID for essences/food colouring. I can do this in one word: mixer.

A common method of getting drunk off of vanilla essence is to buy vanilla essence or food colouring (dunno why food colouring...) and mix it in with Coke or some other soft drink to create cheap alcoholic drinks. It masks the taste of the alcohol and basically turns it into an alcopop (or bitch beer)
Sirwired, we sell both really tiny bottles of vanilla essence and other flavourings (orange essence too) and bigger bottles. The biggest size that's standard is 250ml.
And whoever stated the Listerine thing is pretty much right and is the reason why we don't check ID for mouthwash.

But at least we don't check ID for newspapers and coloured pens...(crack pipes? )

[mattm04]

I have refused to bag with some reusable bags before. They smelt like rotting meat and had stains on them and flys appeared. The SC bitched and moaned, said "fine use plastic since you don't care about the environment" and stomped out leaving her bags behind.

We bagged her reuseable bags in a garbage bag and held it for the rest of the day. That night we tossed it.

[UncleImpy]

Quoth Broomjockey

Also, it's not the standard drinking alcohol. It's wood alcohol, rather than grain. Therefore, it's not meant for consumption, and possibly lethal to drink, so most places just take the position of "Most people aren't that stupid."

I do believe Aaron from the War Stories threads would beg to differ!

[Pagan]

Quoth tamezin

There is a reason for that, Vanilla is one of the strongest and most concentrated flavorings evah. Think about it, 1 tsp is enough to flavor 2 batches of cookies, a gallon of ice cream or a sheet cake. (we could go on and on) I have never heard of ID being checked for it though.

Hmmmm. I have yet to see anyone carded for vanilla extract, food dye, or knives here. I got a fairly large bottle of vanilla at Sam's a while back and wasn't asked.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Never got carded for any of those, but once got carded for a freaking bicycle pump.

Yep. You read that right.

[fireheart]

Quoth RecoveringKinkoid

Never got carded for any of those, but once got carded for a freaking bicycle pump.

Yep. You read that right.

bicycle pump? O_O

They're cracking down in Australia I think because of the government's crackdown on alcohol and someone's actually died from drinking vanilla essence. I'll scan the article when I can dig the magazine out of my locker.

[Kogarashi]

I haven't seen the age prompt at Walmart for knives, vanilla, or food coloring, but some other things have made me giggle. White-out, superglue, certain spraypaint cans (but not others), something fuel-related (injector?).... Usually when I would get these at my register, I'd jokingly ask the customer if they were over 18. Twice, I've actually had to refuse sales because the customer wasn't over 18 (both times, they were a few months shy of it). Go figure. At least both times the customer was understanding and agreed with me that it was just a wee bit dumb. But it was a fireable offense.

[Becks]

Quoth fireheart17

Leaving them in the car

STOP TELLING ME THIS! Seriously, whyyy do I keep hearing this from people? I really don't care if you have bags or not. If you do, just toss them over. If you don't, I don't care. I'll use plastic. I don't care if you left them in the car, at home, they were chewed up by your neighbour's penis-sized dog or whatever, but stop telling me this. Please.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard this, I wouldn't need a job for a while.

I just tell (in my sympathetic) the customers that it seems to happen a lot.