Blue Laws and insanity

 When you do the same thing over and expect a different outcome...... Insanity

 

 One of the most perplexing things we, as westerners, encounter on our American wander are blue laws.

 Quite simply, we didn't get that there are any real benefits to them. 

  Seems, by talking to folks and reading the local publications, there are just as many drinkers in "dry" areas as there are in "wet" areas.

 The difference being the cost and availability of booze.

 Here is a real example of the silliness that some of these laws spawn.

 Four of us (My folks and Gwen and I) went to eat at a new fancy steak-house in Arkansas on a Sunday.

 We order drinks, three margaritas and a gin and tonic, the waitress asked us "are you in the drink club?" 

 "Uh, well- no, what's that?" said I, forgetting for a moment my position on the globe and the day of the week ( A common meandering symptom )

 She brings us some credit card sized cards and asks us to fill them out.

 Innocuous enough questions, name, age, signature.... OK

 We fill them all out and then she comes back with a tray and our drinks, we all hold up our dutifully recorded admission to alcohol use when she says;

 "Oh no, you keep those in your wallet, just sign our book and put your card number right next to it"

 OHH KAYY!  My mind at this time was reeling, In order to comply with a local ordinance concerning the consumption of adult beverages. The seller has to get the name in writing from someone that they don't know and that information must be corroborated by a card they will never read.

 I asked if I could sign everybody's name, what the heck? give it a try.

 "Sure" she hands me the book.

 Serves the drinks and says "be right back"

 This is too much, I always wanted to be Mickey Mouse

 M. Mouse #2235

 And so on, I named my mom Daffy Duck

 The meal was unremarkable, far below the fare we tasted at Fred's Fish House or the Blu Pig

 I have never come across any information that indicates that a blue law has been voted into existence since the repeal of prohibition.

 They just seem damn hard to vote OUT of existence.