Sketchy Soap Experience

Alright, so yesterday I called to a hardware store in Tennessee to see if I could find some lye so I can start making soap. The dude on the phone was very nonchalant when he replied "Yeah, we've got about half a dozen containers." I then replied "Alright, I'll be by later today to pick it up."

I ran my errands and then picked up a friend and headed to Hampton, Tennessee. An hour and a half later, I walk up to the guy at the hardware store counter and the sketchy situation ensued:

"Hi, I'm starting soapmaking and I'm looking for some lye, do you guys have any?"
"...We used to."
I imagine I had a very disheartened look on my face, "Oh, really? Because I called earlier and the guy I talked to said you had some..."
Dude behind the counter gives me a weird look and walks around the counter, "Who did you talk to?" very sternly.
"I'm not sure, he didn't give me his name."
Dude sort of snickers and walks over to a box, "Well...now that you said you called---I remember. We have to kind of be careful about selling this stuff. They use it for meth, you know."
"...."
He asked me how many containers I wanted and I said "Two or three" and he said "Well. I don't think I can sell you three," in a very important sounding tone.
So I said, "Two then." and he told me to go pay in the other room...but in like...a warning tone.
I paid and got outta there as fast as possible.
Talk about weird. Can't figure out if they were selling it illegally or not but it seems odd that he'd tell me straight out over the phone that they carried it if they were selling it illegally.
At any rate. I got my lye. Everybody keeps saying "Oh god, I hope you don't get in trouble for having that stuff" A) are the cops coming to search my house for lye? B)....I'll give them a bar of soap, I guess. Hah, I mean, what else can I do?

Moral of this story: Next time I'll be ordering all my lye online. I just didn't want to wait for it to be shipped so I could go head and get started soon. Now all I have to do is get all the cooking utensils needed and I'm good to go (as soon as Sunday rolls around and I've got a day off work).