By Tanya Pike

Last night, while finishing up the commercial cleaning account, we decided that pancakes and bacon sounded good for dinner. Sometimes we like breakfast at the end of the day. Mixes things up a little! A. asked if we had everything we needed and I did a quick rundown in my head. The only thing we were short on was maple syrup.

I'm kind of a maple syrup snob. I think the insurance commercial using the talking bottle is cute - but that's all the use I have for "artificially maple flavored" syrup. The real deal is expensive, so I've been known to dole it out like methadone at a rehab center. "This is all you can have today dear! Come back and see me again tomorrow!"

We were in separate cars, so it was decided that I would go home and start dinner and A. would stop at the store to get the syrup. I told her that there would only be one kind on the shelf and that it would be in a clear glass bottle.

As the bacon was starting to sizzle in the pan my cell phone rang. A. was laughing so hard she could hardly talk. Slowly the story came out, between the giggles.

She had been standing in line with her one item. There weren't enough lanes open (of course) and the clerk was a bit harried. She finished the large order in front of A. and reached out to take the syrup off the belt. She didn't look up and loudly said, "ID please!" Apparently she wasn't fooling around and saw that A. wasn't digging fast enough in her wallet for her driver's license.

"I said, ID please!"

A's heart began to race. In her mind she quickly began to wonder what in the heck teenagers were doing with maple syrup that necessitated law abiding citizens to show their ID for a small glass bottle.

Confused, she started to reach for her wallet and quietly said to the grocery clerk, "It's just maple syrup. . ."

A long, awkward silence was followed by guffaws of laughter that broke the tension for everyone.

The grocery clerk apologized. A lot. A. laughed. A lot.

Who knew that real maple syrup was the hottest new drug in town?