Steroids / We ID Under 27

A.

I say screw it, let baseball players take all the steroids they want. Is juicing any more unnatural than forgoing all productive activity to spend four hours a day in a weight room and another eight practicing a game? Isn't that "cheating" compared to the 99% of human history in which athletes were amateurs who spent their days farming, smithing, or soldiering?

And if it's about setting examples for kids, do you really want your child's role model to be some jock who gave up any hope of an education for the one in ten thousand chance of making it to the big leagues? If you want to scare a kid straight, don’t show him some steroids-make-your-dick-fall-off public service announcement. Show him the 40-year-old shortstop on the AA team bus, screaming down his cell phone that this month's paycheck won't cover his child support either.

B.

Yesterday at the Seven-Eleven, while fumbling for my American Express (yes, I had the $1.01 in cash, but there are few things more satisfying than buying a Slurpee on credit and thinking "this is exactly why we have a subprime mortgage crisis,") I saw this familiar sign:


Now here's my question: if the Seven-Eleven clerk is so gifted that he can distinguish on sight a 26-year-old from a 27-year-old, can't he tell a 20-year-old from a 21-year-old? And if he can, why does he need to ask for ID? And why is he working at the Seven-Eleven, when he could make a killing down on the boardwalk hustling "Stump the Wizard"?