(no subject)

[kleenexwoman]

I had this dream that Michigan banned the sale of alcohol products. Alcohol was legal to own, distill, or drink, you just couldn't buy or sell it within state lines.

Most of the grocery stories and party stores just stopped selling it, or sold "non-alcoholic" beer or wine, or had some sort of arcane subscription service. But the Bottle & Barrel down the street adopted another strategy. They started selling fabric swatches, all different kinds, and giving away bottles of alcohol and cans of beer free with each swatch, depending on price. They even had a little chart up on the wall showing what kind of alcohol you got with each kind of fabric. Silks tended to be vodka, cotton was rum, wool blends were whiskey or scotch, and beer and wine were patterned polyester or lengths of yarn. I think they were selling paper samples for alcopops, like Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Coincidentally, we're going to the bar tonight for a friend's going-away party. \o/

Comments

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

No, not specifically. That's part of it, but I meant in a more general sense of puritanical pleasure avoidance. And even though America's back to its good ol' drunken roots, there's still a hell of a lot of mixed messages that get pushed on us.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Dude, the Puritanical ideal of pleasure avoidance has been with us ever since Martin Luther translated the Bible into German. Prohibition was just a result of that, prejudice against the poor, and first-wave feminism.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Ah, no, not since Luther. Luther liked himself a good roaring drunk every so often. He felt bad about it afterward, but he didn't stop doing it. It was only when we got to stupid John Calvin and a few other assholes that I'm forgetting (or maybe blocking) that humanity put a giant bug up its collective ass.