Lushy McLush, yeah, that's me

One of the things that foreigners find odd about the US is that laws regarding the sale and consumption of alcohol are regulated by individual states, not by the federal government. Without getting into a whole discussion of our history and federalism and states' rights, it's a load of crap and extremely inconvenient to have it so.

When I was growing up, the age of consumption (for lack of a better term) was 18. Cool, right? But wait, the federal government decided that was too young and was causing lots of drunk driving deaths, so they forced all the states to raise the AOC to 21 by withholding federal funds for interstate highway repair and construction if they didn't. (BTW, the number of drunk driving accidents and deaths has RISEN since they did this. Way to go, government!) There was a short period of time where if you turned 18 before a certain date, you could still buy alcohol even if you were under 21. Of course, my life being what it is, I got shat on and totally missed the Virginia date, and just missed the District of Columbia date, and was therefore consigned to frat parties, sneaking into bars underage, and getting older people to buy alcohol for me. This did get markedly easier when I started working in bars and everyone working in other bars either assumed I was 21 or cast a blind eye on the situation for the big tips (the service industry is a real small world, people).

So, anyway, I muddled along and it didn't much affect my social life too much other than general inconvenience. Never even had a fake ID. And then, one day, I turned 21. On a Sunday. Could it suck any worse? Why yes, it could. I went to buy my first booze and the bastards didn't even card me!

Here's where I get to the point of this entry. (I know you were asking when that would happen, but I did warn you I tend to ramble and go off on tangents, so deal with it, okay?) In Virginia, you can buy beer and wine in any grocery store or convenience store that has a license issued for the sale, and that's 99.99999% of them. It is extremely convenient. For hard liquor, it's a little inconvenient; that is sold only through state-run Alcoholic Beverage Control stores. Their hours are not as good as grocery and convenience stores, but at least there are more of these than there used to be, and the hours are better than they were 10 years ago when they weren't even open on Sundays.

Then I moved to California, where I was stunned and overjoyed to find that YOU CAN BUY EVERY KIND OF BOOZE KNOWN TO MAN RIGHT THERE IN THE GROCERY STORE! You can pick up a bottle of Jack while you fill up your car. You can grab a bottle of Smirnoff (not that you'd want to, but still) while you wait for your sub to be made at the deli. It was like moving to the land of plenty. Plenty of booze, that is, and lots of it went right down my gullet in the 5 years I lived there. (That would explain the 50 lbs I put on living there - but I was underweight when I moved there, I needed 20 of it anyway, now if I could just get rid of the last 10! but I digress . . .)

And here I am in DC now and the rules have changed all over again. Booze is primarily sold only in licensed liquor stores, and they are very prevalent. Conversely, you don't see very many 7-11's or plain convenience stores, which leads me to believe that the ones in other states with different laws sell a lot of booze! Occasionally you will find a grocery store that has a license to sell beer and wine, but not liquor. AND you will not be able to buy ANY hard liquor on Sunday, only beer and wine. The hours of sale appear to be 9 am to 1 am, which is quite different from Virginia which was 6 am to 12 am.

In Virginia, I had my local 7-11 just down on the corner that I could walk to for beer or wine - tres convenient - and there was a grocery store less than a mile away. In California, I had a fab wine store just at the bottom of the hill, and a grocery store and gas station and 7-11 less than a mile away.

Now, I'm in need of a new local sales point. The closest liquor store is about a 10 minute walk each way, and isn't very well stocked at all. The next closest is probably a 15 minute walk each way, and it doesn't appear to be that well stocked either. And the nearest grocery store that sells beer and wine (no liquor at all) is about 2 miles away through city streets. This is not convenient at all.

What's a lush to do? I mean, obviously, I'm a lush or I wouldn't have spent all this time typing this shit out and thinking this hard about it. Damn.

And what if we have a real rager at the new place? What are we supposed to do when we run out of booze at 5 am? We can't wait until 9 am to go buy more! At least in Virginia, we'd only have to wait an hour and wouldn't lose our buzz!

What are those 12 steps again? Lots more than 12 steps to the liquor store, I'll tell you that.