how moving to the us made me stop drinking

so i recently moved to the us, today something upsetting happened and i really wanted to drink, not like shaking, just really wanted to drink a bit…

anyways, alcohol only sold in special stores, they close early, closest one open is 30 min walk away; not a big deal, will have a nice walk, i arrive there, looking at beers, they’re all locked away for some reason, behind a literal lock (strange but okay)

look at different brands, don’t recognise any, most tastes are like nuclear acid + eagle milk dark beer, whatever… try to see how much they cost, there are no price stickers, not even worn out/scrubbed out ones, literally none; so i ask an employee what the price is, he says they’re all different and i gotta take one out and try to buy it before finding out the price… what the hell??

anyways, i found a familiar brand, ask them to unlock to grab it… when i go to checkout, apparently you have to buy 2 or more??? okay, whatever, i then just grab the 750 ml one of the same beer, proceed to check out

at this point i’m already just really annoyed by all this stupid shit and having to ask an employee for some trivial shit for like the 10th time, but whatever

employee beeps it, it’s 4.69 usd (kinda overpriced for that beer but whatever), i say i’m paying by card, but apparently you can’t buy stuff for below 5 usd?? otherwise there’s an 80 cent (!!!!) fee (are they sending that transaction using post pigeons or smth lol)

whatever, i just grab a second small can of the same brand (0.5l) to get me over the 5 usd barrier, then i touch to pay and it doesn’t work for some reason, employee grabs the card from me, puts it in using the magnetic tape… and then… the stupid ass payment processing machine asks me FOR A TIP!!! i kid you not!!! minimum percentage is 15%!! no option for “no tip”, you gotta apparently press the custom tip button and enter 0??

at that point i’m not even annoyed, i’m just completely flabbergasted, so i straight up ask them to cancel the transaction and just walked out of there, i don’t even want to drink anymore, i’m just in a state of mild shock of how surreal and lowkey funny the whole exchange was, so i just bought some peanuts and now i’m back lmao