For Goodness’ Sake!

My brother and I are on a shopping trip together, which includes a stop at the local liquor store to pick up some sake. My brother is a few days short of his twenty-first birthday, and I’m twenty-four. After finding what I want, I come up to the checkout with my brother.

Cashier: “That’ll be [total], and I’ll need to see both of your IDs.”

Me: “Actually, my brother’s under twenty-one, but I’m twenty-four. This is for me.”

Cashier: “Uh, sorry, you both need to be twenty-one or over. You could be buying this for your underage brother. In fact, there’s a sign on the door that under-twenty-ones aren’t allowed in at all.”

Belatedly, I remember seeing the sign.

Me: “Well, crap.”

Brother: “So, out of all the drinks in the store my brother could try to buy for me, you think I’d go for sake?”

Cashier: “Unlikely, but still possible. But since you were honest about him being underage, I think you were telling the truth.”

He rings us up. As we leave the store, I turn to my brother.

Me: “You couldn’t have been born a week earlier?”