I sensed this at Long's drug store in Palo Alto when I stopped by for a toothbrush. I was caught up in observing a small drama at the checkout counter when the clerk asked the fellow in front of me to produce some identification. He pulled out his driver's license and handed it to the clerk. She studied it, did some quick arithmetic, and calculated that it was permissible for this customer to purchase the six-pack of beer he wanted.

At first, I was pleased to see such ready compliance with a law (or maybe it was simply Long's store policy) that required a clerk to demand proof of age from any customer buying alcoholic stuff. It is comforting to find law-abiding citizens these days, when the law seems so much out of fashion, especially, it seems, among many of New York's law-enforcement officials.

But I had second thoughts about this when I noted that the customer appeared to be of advanced age, an age-worn Father Time. He was unmistakably of drinking age-even in California, I suspected.

I don't know how old you have to be in California before you can legally drink beer or, at any rate, how old you have to be to buy beer-which may be a different matter. I'm certain that the fellow in front of me had passed that landmark many decades ago. Then again, it's possible that actual age is less important than the data printed on an ID document. And it's possible that law-or store policy-required that the clerk view an ID for any person wanting to buy beer, regardless of the person's age or apparent age. After all, if we can't depend on print, what can we depend on?

And then I felt gratified that our industry is driven by good common sense and practicality. Of course, our companies have to make rules, else there would be chaos. But we don't make rules and policies that leave no room for human judgment. We don't follow procedures because we've always followed them and they've always been there and nobody knows why they got there. We don't always assume that every policy and every procedure must have been created for a very good reason and for eternity. And the rules we do create make a lot of sense.