So, this whole thing about an age restriction to buy condoms, right? It gets you thinking. It’s one of those topics that seems straightforward on the surface, but when you actually dig into it, or have to deal with it in real life, it’s a bit of a mess.
My Time at the Corner Shop
I remember back when I was a kid, maybe 16 or 17, working a till at this local corner shop. Not exactly a high-end pharmacy, more like one of those places that sold a bit of everything – papers, sweets, milk, and yeah, a small selection of toiletries, including condoms. They were usually tucked away on a shelf, sometimes behind the counter, depending on how the manager was feeling that week about “the look of the thing.” The official line on selling them, especially to younger folks, was… well, let’s just say it was pretty murky. Cloudy, even.
Nobody ever sat us down and gave us, the staff, clear, black-and-white instructions. It was always more of an implied thing, a sort of ‘use your judgment’ situation. Which, let me tell you, is just a fantastic way for management to wash their hands of any responsibility and dump it squarely on the shoulders of some teenager trying to earn a few quid. You’re just a kid yourself, really, and suddenly you’re supposed to be a moral compass or a legal expert on who gets to buy what.
You’d see them come in, these young lads, and sometimes lasses too. They’d wander around the shop for ages, trying to look casual, picking things up and putting them down. Then they’d make a beeline for the counter, mumble their request, eyes darting everywhere but at you. You could just feel the nervousness radiating off them; they were absolutely bricking it. And what were you supposed to do? Start an interrogation? Ask for ID for condoms? It always felt a bit over the top, a bit… off, you know?
Here’s the thing that always got me, the real kicker:
- We sold cigarettes. For that? Oh boy, we were drilled. Strict ID checks, photocopies of warnings about fines, the whole nine yards. You mess that up, big trouble for everyone.
- We sold booze (well, the older staff did, I was too young to legally sell it myself, but I saw it happen). Same deal. Super strict. Check ID, be vigilant.
- But condoms? It was this bizarre, unspoken grey area. No clear rules, no specific age mentioned, just… ambiguity.
It was almost like society, or at least the shop owners and the powers that be, didn’t want to officially admit, ‘Yes, young people are sexually active and they absolutely should have access to protection.’ But at the same time, nobody wanted to be the one to outright deny access and then, well, you can imagine the potential consequences of that – unwanted pregnancies, STIs, all that stuff. So, the problem just sort of… landed on us, the folks on minimum wage, to navigate these choppy waters with no real map.
I always thought the whole setup was a bit daft, to be honest. I mean, seriously, isn’t the entire point to encourage people – especially young people who might be new to all this – to be responsible? To make safe choices? Putting up these invisible barriers, making it an embarrassing, anxiety-ridden ordeal, just seemed completely counterproductive. What exactly were we trying to achieve by making it awkward or uncertain? Were we hoping they’d just give up and, what, hope for the best? It baffled me then, and it still baffles me now.
I don’t know if things are massively different these days across the board. I hear stories here and there. Some places are apparently totally cool about it, treat it like buying a loaf of bread. Other places, you’d think you were trying to buy black market plutonium. It still seems like it’s a bit of a lottery, depending on where you go, who’s behind the counter, and maybe even what kind of day they’re having.
At the end of the day, if someone, regardless of their age, is trying to do the responsible thing, why on earth would you want to make that difficult for them? Just let them buy the damn things. It would cause far less trouble, far less anxiety, and ultimately be far better for everyone involved in the long run. I swear, I saw more fuss and bother made over a kid trying to buy an energy drink back then than over someone quietly trying to pick up a pack of johnnies. Priorities, eh? It just seemed like a whole lot of unnecessary hand-wringing over something that should be pretty straightforward. Just my two cents from what I saw on the ground.
