If You Want The Energy Drink Have The Energy To Cooperate

Supermarkets in the UK aren’t allowed to sell energy drinks to under-sixteens. For sake of ease, the one I work for puts it under the challenge-twenty-five policy; if you look younger than twenty-five, you have to show ID. We can be fired if we don’t ask. I’m by the checkouts when there’s a loud commotion at self-serve, so I head on over just in case.

A boy who looks about sixteen is loudly swearing at my colleague on self-serve, gesturing wildly, whilst the girl he’s with, who looks eighteen or nineteen, is trying to calm him down. My colleague tells him to leave, and he does, but not before throwing what he was going to purchase on the floor and pushing over our social distancing signs, barriers, a tower of baskets, and some stock. The girl apologises profusely to my colleague and follows him out, looking mortified. I head in and help my colleague pick up stuff.

Me: “You okay? I can cover you if you need to have a break?”

Colleague: “I’m fine. I finish in a couple of minutes anyway.”

Me: “What an end to your shift. What even was his problem?”

Colleague: “Wanted to buy an energy drink. He looked young, so I asked for ID. He didn’t have any; he left his license at home. I told him I couldn’t sell him that, but I could hold onto his stuff whilst he picked a different drink to go with his meal deal. ‘I’m 21!! Raaarraarraar,’ effing this, effing that. Honestly.”

Me: “He was twenty-one?!”

Colleague: “I know, he looked like he was thirteen! And having the hormonal rage of a pubescent teenager isn’t going to make me think that you’re old enough to buy it!”