Walgreens, Cigs, and a Scene of Annoyance

I was out and about and I got a call from my mom. “Buy me cigarettes.” She never says, “Or else,” but you can tell those two little words are there.

So, I detoured to Walgreens to appease the craving of a life-long smoker who will never quit (and thus make my life easier). At the counter, the clerk asked, “Are these for you?’

I truthfully answered, “No,” as I’m generally a truthful sort of person.

“Then I can’t sell them to you,” she said, “because you might give them to someone underage.”

Say what? “Then, yes,” I said, “they are for me.”

“But you already told me that they weren’t. So it’s not going to happen,” she screamed while blowing forth smoke from her ears and laser beams from her eyes. (I exaggerate.)

I’m left to wonder…what, really, was the point of this power-tripping question except to avoid some scenario of a potential ATF sting? The clerk had no way of checking the veracity of my answer one way or another. She did not see me associate with anyone who might be underage and thus couldn’t defend the question on the grounds of suspicious behavior. I don’t recall a law that says that the cancer sticks can only be purchased by the intended user. On a multitude of levels, I’m left scratching my head.

Why the frak ask the question in the first place? If my intent had been to give the nefarious drug device to someone underage (which it would never be), wouldn’t I just lie from the get-go? Wouldn’t my truthful answer to a potentially entrapping question imply that I wasn’t some scofflaw instead of the opposite?

So…I left, burned a little more gasoline, and picked up the mom-appeasers at another Walgreens. No. Questions. Asked. Easy peasy.