We’ve Got This

Since the holidays are nigh I thought this would be an appropriate time to wade into good news territory.  I like to keep things upbeat by shunning bad news and focusing on positives in life.

 Unfortunately, there is so much negativity in today’s world, I am forced to point out what I feel is the obviously inane.

But getting back to the holidays, I am pleased to report that our local Tallmart is really on top of things; that is satisfying, to me.

Prepping for Thanksgiving Day dinner, Christmas gatherings, and New Year’s Eve parties, had me and my sainted wife shopping for necessities.

We traditionally make decorations, crafts, bake our own goods, and even grow some of our own produce and organic herbs.

This dictates packaging a la homemade wood working, painting, paper crafting, and canning, for the effective distribution of safe gifts for our closest friends and associates.

Tallmart seemed to be the one-stop-shopping place for most, if not all, our supply needs.

We handily located the spray paint, aerosol whipped cream, and some craft adhesive, along with an assortment of food stuffs and festive paper goods.

Not Craft Adhesive

 At the checkout, the apparent Tallmart mastermind suddenly reached a scanning roadblock.  The first item that scanned, but insisted on more intrusive information, was the red spray paint. 

A glance behind our cart at the nine other impatient gum-snapping, camouflage-clad fellow shoppers – all yakking on their unaffordable cellular phones – began giving us the ol’ stinkeye.

“I need to see your ID,” was the demand of the cashier to me.

This is where I need to point out that although I am a spitting image of Tom Selleck, I don't look anywhere near the age of a minor.  You see, in the People’s Republic of Maryland, consumers must be at least 21 years-old to purchase spray paint.

As a kid, I used literally gallons of spray paint to customize my well-used bicycles, in an effort to both confuse my pals into thinking I got a new bike, or amaze them with my impressive painting skills.  Neither happened.

Still, I passed my driver’s license to the Tallmart cashier who gave me the “OK” to purchase this legal product.

It seems as though too many nitwits in Maryland attempt to get a quick, cheap high by huffing spray paint.  Clearly, this carding effort was nipping this epidemic in the bud by making me fumble around for my state-issued ID.

Next on the conveyor belt was the aerosol whipped cream.  Once again, the cash register demanded the cashier check for age appropriateness.  Now it was my turn to exercise some civil disobedience.

“That’s not mine,” I asserted.  “It belongs to her,” I said, motioning to my sainted wife.

 Now she, too, was giving me the stinkeye, grumbling under her minty-fresh breath about killing me.

After opening her red wallet to prove to the cashier she was not my much-desired teenaged au pair, we moved on to the glue.  You know the rest of the story.

But the point of all this is that while creating an overburden on honest citizens buying legitimate, legal items, this same state doesn’t see much of an epidemic with marijuana.  In fact, the authorities are ardently attempting to legalize weed because feel they’re fighting a losing battle.

Evidently the whipped cream scourge I well under control in Maryland.

Sumpin’s wrong.  Elect new bodies with better ideas.  And Happy Thanksgiving!