Give Me a Break

To continue with the comments I was making about the insanity in Louisiana. I don’t notice a bunch of pure “beer joints” here, but there is a building on almost every corner advertising “Daiquiri’s”. I thought about this for a while, and decided that these signs could not be referring to the alcoholic drink that I was familiar with. For one thing, these places have drive-through windows and so they couldn’t be selling alcohol. But mainly, if they were selling daiquiris, wouldn’t there be “Martini Bars” or “Crown and Coke Bars”? Why would they discriminate against all the other drinks?

But after a while, I couldn’t come up with what these stores could be selling. So I asked a native. Once more, I got the “alien stare”. If you don’t remember this, it’s referred to in a previous email. And I was told in simple terms that they sell daiquiris…and didn’t they have that drink in Texas?

Having had that part of my curiosity satisfied and afraid to ask anymore apparently stupid questions, I decided to visit one of these fine establishments. And sure enough, behind the bar was an entire line of rotating freezers with every flavor of daiquiri that you could imagine. After sampling a number, I ordered the Tropical Breeze. As the sweet waitress gave me my drink, I expressed my surprise that they could sell alcoholic drinks to people who were obviously driving. She told me that wasn’t true, because Louisiana had passed a “No Open Container” law several years ago. As I’m still watching the drive-in attendant handing folks their drinks, I summed up my courage and asked her to explain more. (I hate getting the alien stare, but my curiosity won out!). She gave me a very detailed illustration, using the same size cup that my drink had come in. “You see”, she explained, “If the plastic lid is on the cup, but the straw is not punched through, it’s a closed container. But if you put the straw through the plastic lid, it’s not legal because that would be a open container.” She smiled sweetly, as though she had just explained a physic concept to a first grader.

I had one last pressing question. “Why would you think that people would come through here and buy a frozen drink that they are not going to drink immediately?” The dear blonde (not a stereotype…she really was!) replied, “I’m sure they are going to take the drink home to drink it”.

Sure. And that, my friends, is one more case of insanity in Louisiana.