I have been carded a lot lately. Been doing a lot of car and house fix-up stuff. Brake fluid, sealants, glues, etc. (Actually, no one has asked to see my id. They just look at me and laugh when the scanner beeps.)
I think the idea that only kids huff this stuff is stupid. That guy TSG and Fark keep posting mug shots of with paint on his face is in his late 40s. 17? Sorry, can’t huff. 18? Go ahead and buy a case of canned air.
It’s basically security theater.
my friend (24) got carded when he tried to buy a used “Halo” game at gamestop a few months ago.
also, i got super-hassled by a bouncer the other day. he asked me what my address was. what streets were close to it. what the local high schools were, and giving the stare-down all the while. i got real lippy about it too. i said “just ask me for a second form. i’ve got an entire wallet full of ID’s. what’s the matter? can’t do the math in your head? 2011-1986 makes me 25.” the guy didn’t like this and was about to toss me when the “head” bouncer came out and settled his hash. i called up the bar the next day and told them that whoever was working the door was being an unnecessary douche and probably got the guy fired.
Last time I bought compressed air for cleaning keyboards, I was carded. Normally not a big deal, but they had to enter my information into their system to complete the sale. So they want to swipe my driver’s license.
Well…the state of Florida switched to licenses with a magnetic stripe a long time ago, but for some reason, they kept letting me renew my license by mail without making me upgrade. I’m carrying an old-school license issued in 1994, with a few stickers on the back. And it’s good until the end of next year. It doesn’t have a magnetic stripe, and they had to get a supervisor to authorize the override. Apparently the supervisor was busy, and it took a few minutes for her to show up.
-D/a
My 13 year old daughter got carded at the movie theatre last weekend for buying a teen ticket. They thought she was over 18. Made her day.
How the hell does one get high on compressed air? Or “bear spray”, for that matter? Those two are new to me.
It’s called whip-its. Supposedly the gas used to pressurize the can will give you a high.
The compressed air is really “canned air” or “air duster” or whatever. They contain virtually no normal air. Cheap buzz for people who don’t like having brain cells.
Acid Lamp and I purchase spray paint and expandable foam on a regular enough basis that our checker usually doesn’t card us for this stuff. He uses it for art, and we’re usually purchasing a bunch of related materials in the process. We did, however, get carded for a while before the checkers recognized us as the regulars who are legally old enough to buy spray paint and do whatever they want with it.
Seriously? So this new regime has prevented those under 18 from making fire? I just wonder how many kids, in the history of this law, have decided to not smoke because, damn, just no way to light this thing since I’m under 18. :rolleyes:
I’m 26 with a babyface. I get carded for everything. It’s only embarrassing when I’m on a date with a male (typically older) and I’m the only one carded.
When I started getting carded more, I’ll invest in more expensive anti-wrinkle serum.
Anymore, most of the major brands have started adding a bitter ingredient so discourage huffing. The thing that sucks is that if you spray it too much in your cube or something, you can taste it in the air, it’s awful.
I had a friend in college somehow get his hands on some DXM powder. He tasted some, his face bunched up into a little ball and as soon as he un-bunched it enough to talk his first words were “No wonder Robotussin tastes so awful…it’s to cover up that.” I think that’s the actual reason. Especially since before Robo-tripping really caught on (and maybe now, I haven’t checked since my college days) there were plenty of pills that contained only DXM without anything else that would make you sick. If you didn’t want to chug a whole bottle of Robotussin it was easy enough to take the pills instead.
I’m not sure what’s in canned air, but whip-its are nitrous oxide cartridges used for charging home whipped cream makers. But there are ways of getting the nitrous into balloons so you can inhale it.
Hmm, I dunno. There’s only 10 mg of active DXM in a 15 mL tablespoon of the stuff. So an entire bottle (the one I have right now is 354 mL) would only have 236 mg - about a quarter of a gram, of actual active DXM. It seems like if they wanted to make it taste better, they could dilute it with something tastier pretty easily. And why would a pure pill form of it make you sick? I know another way some kids tripped on DXM was to buy Coricidin tablets, which do contain DXM in pill form. The problem is that it also contains chlorpheniramine maleate, which is really bad for you in high doses and can make you sick. An entry on UD (I know, not a scientific source, but this particular entry sounds credible enough) on Coricidin says:
I’m pretty sure that the reason you can’t get DXM in pure pill or powdered form OTC is because of the potential for abuse, and not because it tastes bad or would make you sick as a pill by itself. But I could be wrong.
I never really gave it much thought. In fact, the few times I Robo-tripped, I remember specifically using a different brand because it didn’t taste nearly as awful.
I meant it would make you sick because a lot of the pills contained other ingredients above and beyond the DXM as you pointed out. Usually guaifenesin, pseudoephedrine or the antihistimine that Coriciden had. Luckily, when I used pills I was one of the smarter people that actually read the labels and found something that had DXM only. Oddly, it turned out to be of of the versions of Coriciden IIRC. But it was such a PITA to find, I never told anyone about it. Also, I remember way back when, looking around online to find out what the mystery drug was that was in all the other Coricidens (the allure of Coriciden to me was that the pills were small and you had to take a lot of them) and finding out that it was something that would make you sick so I never bothered telling anyone which one it was and just directed them to Robotussin since it was easier that way.
ETA, you’d be surprised how insanely bitter some meds are. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a quarter of a milligram could easily taint an entire bottle of something that would deem in necessary to make the whole thing repulsive to cover the taste. Back in college we extracted the active ingredients (into a powder or very very small amount of liquid) out of a few things (robotussin included) in an attempt not to have to down so many pills or so much liquid. We usually found that the best way to take it was to drink something strong (like strong chocolate milk) take a shot of the concentrated drug and then put a spoonful of toothpaste in our mouth…and that only kinda helped. The first time we did it, we tried diluting it in something else and found that it only made for more of the noxious tasting substance to drink, rather then making it weaker tasting.
There are a lot of interesting replies here. I’ve never been carded for a lighter. I don’t care if someone swipes my driver’s license, it was the fact that the clerk had to hand write everything down on a form that made me leave put my beer back and drive across the street.
I was talking to friends about this today and one of them said that he had to show ID before getting a sample of non-alcoholic Bailey’s. Nobody has been carded for a tortilla chip.
One time, my boss said she was going to the library at lunch and I mentioned that I’d be going after work because I had a book on the reserve shelf. My boss thought it would be funny for her to check it out and let me find the empty slot on the shelf and suffer agonies of book withdrawal until the next morning. She knew that I’d ask at the desk and when I had her name, I’d just stop by her place to get it or call her and spew creative curses. The library lady took one look at my boss’s library card and was VERY firm when she told my boss that she would have to see some ID to prove that my boss was me. She also said that if my boss was able to show ID, she would take the library card away. My boss just slunk away.
I was carded by a seriously cute lady in a Lake Louise liquor store last September. I pointed to the “under 25” sign and said I took it as a compliment. (I’m going to be 30 too soon.)
I never bought cigarettes or lighters in North America, so I can’t weigh in on that.
I got carded going into the local casino two weeks ago. The woman was really adamant that I didn’t look 21…and I’m 38! Normally I would have taken it as a compliment, but the lady seemed really pissed off at me, like I was trying to pull a fast one on her or something.
I get carded for buying pseudoephedrine. Lots of meth heads around here so they keep it behind the pharmacy counter now and you’re limited to how much you can buy.
I got carded buying paint thinner at the art store a few weeks ago. I’m 48. 
I regularly have to give my birthdate to the folks where I buy cigs, even though I buy them there every week and look waaaayyyyy past 18.
I’m not sure where your location is but I’m pretty sure that’s nation-wide in the USA. (Could be wrong.)
This is what bugs me so much. There’s a cashier who knows me by sight and once I said to her “You asked me for ID last time” and she said “And I’m gonna ask you EVERY TIME.” Fine, let’s waste both our time. :rolleyes:
