this day in stream-of-consciousness

On this day in 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed a bill into law that legalized the sale of beer and wine. As a resident of the state of Georgia, I can’t help but note with sadness that this anniversary fell on a Sunday, a day on which no one in this state can buy beer or wine, or any alcohol for that matter.

Well, I should amend that to say that you could drive to a restaurant, have as many beers as you want, and then drive home drunk, but you couldn’t drive to the grocery store, pick up some beer, and make the return drive perfectly sober to enjoy the beer in the comfort and safety of your own home. That is just not allowed.

To mark the passing of this day, I opened up a beer right at the time I started composing this entry (8:08 p.m.). I intend to type about whatever pleases me until the beer is gone. I have nothing else to say, really, about the stupidity of the Georgia no-Sunday sales situation, except to note that I was reading an article earlier today about how Georgia has some of the worst smoking ban laws in the country. So to recap, a typical Sunday here would be driving to a bar, inhaling a lot of smoke and booze, then driving home with carcinogens in your system and alcohol in your bloodstream. I guess there’s a joke in there about how living in Georgia fosters death wishes in people, but I’m too tired to think of it.

The main thing that bothers me about the Sunday rules is that I tend to do my weekly grocery store shopping on Sundays. Or, well, I used to. Now there’s no point, because you’ll have to make a separate trip back to get the wine and beer, so you might as well just move the shopping to another day, even though that totally messes up your schedule but we wouldn’t want to offend God by buying beer on Sunday.

The beer I am drinking is a Yuengling, by the way. I feel there have been lots of references to alcohol on the blog lately, but have no fear. I am not a lush. It’s just that it’s that perfect time of year for sitting out on the patio and having chardonnay. Except for the damn bees. The bees came back today. I have a balcony, and there are some bees that love to eat the wood that makes up said balcony. The bees are dumb, and frequently they fly into the glass sliding door that leads to the balcony. I could hear them from my bedroom this morning, when I was waking up. I could hear the thwack of bee against glass, and I knew those bees were back. Soon everything will be covered with pollen, and when it rains there will be streams of yellow water making their way down the road.

I just spent some time on Wikipedia, and though Wikipedia claims that Kansas has some of the strictest alcohol laws in the country, that state has allowed Sunday sales in some locations since 2005. Even in Massachusetts, where the Puritans live, they’re okay with Sunday sales now. I really can’t find another state that has laws as strict as these….I would settle for no sales until after 12 p.m. Earlier this year, with the economy so bad, there was a bill to permit Sunday sales, with the thought that people needed as many opportunities to earn money as possible (or that people were so down in the dumps that they needed to be able to get trashed on a Sunday), but that was killed by, as I understand it, religious children coming in front of the legislature to plead God’s case. It just seems like God might have more important things to worry about.

The no sales on Sunday thing is probably the worst thing about living in Georgia. It’s even worse than being a liberal in a red state. But though I have rambled on for several hundred words about the situation, I don’t want it to seem like this problem defines my life. Sometimes it makes me sad, but I never need a drink so bad that I am saddened by the roped-off beer aisle at the grocery store. I think if this is the worst problem I have to deal with, then my state is probably okay.

But then, I might be feeling lovey-dovey since I just killed three-quarters of a beer on an empty stomach. Speaking of which, after I finish this entry I’m going to have dinner, which is some Indian food. Trader Joe’s makes theses lovely boxes of things like Punjab eggplant, and if you put it over some rice, it is just wonderful. I will probably have orange juice with dinner, though, since this was my last beer, and in case I haven’t made this clear enough, I can’t buy anymore until tomorrow. On that note, it’s 8:32 and I have finished the beer. Cheers to FDR for doing the best he could on this day in history.