GORDON LIGHTFOOT | Culture
REALITY CHECK
A 35-year-old man from Palmerston North has faced a devastating reminder of his own mortality, after a young supermarket cashier didn’t even think to ask for ID while he was buying a six-pack of Behemoth on Friday night.
Tom Richards, a project coordinator who once had a “baby face,” described the moment as “a forceful kick to the mid section.”
“She was about 21, maybe 22, very smiley, very professional,” said Richards, visibly shaken. “But she just beeped the beer through, looked right past me, and said ‘Next please.’ Not even a flicker of doubt that I could be underage. I didn’t even get a chance to reach for my wallet.”
Richards said he tried to rationalise the encounter while bagging his own items. “Maybe she was just in a rush, maybe she thought I already looked responsible. But deep down I know what this means. The face is marked, the skin’s loose… it’s all over.”
He admitted to attempting a casual smirk to seem youthful, but claimed it only made him look “like someone’s creepy uncle.”
Other shoppers confirmed the incident. “Yeah, he looked mid-thirties,” said witness Mel Jenkins. “If anything, he looked like a guy who’s relieved when his toddler finally goes to sleep. You can spot that look a mile away.”
Richards says he still remembers the thrill of being asked for ID in his twenties. “You’d whip it out with a grin, like ‘No worries, here you go.’ Now it’s just… silence. Cold, dead silence.”
He reportedly went home, drank two beers, and stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, softly whispering, “Still got it,” though witnesses suggest he did not, in fact, still have it.
More to come.
