Why No, Ma'am

Today I walked to a smaller grocery store that's just down the street from my apartment complex. Since I've got no wheels this was the best I could do. What the hell, I thought. Couldn't be that bad of a place. I walked into the store to discover a heavy amount of activity at the registers. The place was bigger than I thought initially. Cool. I grabbed a shopping cart with a squeaky wheel and was thinking rum and coke would be good for the evening. I made a lap around the store, then walked each and every aisle. Hmmm. No booze besides wine and beer. I must have missed it. Silly me. I walked the entire floorplan again. Still no boozes. Twenty three laps later and still no booze I was fucking irritated. I asked some random customer on the floor, "Hey man, where's the booze?" This person looked at me like I was a purple chimpanzee and said there was no booze to be had in grocery stores. What the fuck? They went on to say that I had to go to a State-run liquor store. "And where would I find one of these places?" I asked. Oh, they're around was the reply.

This is so fucked up. I'm in one of those blue states or some shit. Hey isn't the state of Washington on the west coast? Did I just somehow step off the plane into 1950s Utah or something? I thought Washington was progessive and hip like California. Didn't cool stuff come from Seattle all the time? Huh?

Thoroughly pissed off but maintaining my composure I went up to the cash register with my basket of grub and a poor substitute for my precious rum and cokes. A single bottle of red wine. Naturally the youngish looking lady asked for my ID as she was about to ring up the bottle of wine. I pulled my driver's license out and she said, "Oh, you're from California. How do you like it here so far?" I pondered for a moment. All I saw here was hicks and churches. That's it. I didn't have a polite way of breaking the news to her that my initial reaction to Spokane was that it's a backwards shithole. A portal into total white trash hell of epic proportions. So I replied, "It's not what I expected really. The area here has more of a down home sort of feel to it."

The lady behind the register got bright red in the face. Uh oh. I must have screwed the pooch with that comment. Then she yelled in my face, "Boy, are you callin' us rednecks?" Everything on the front end of the store completely stopped. Customers in all of the busy checkstands were staring at me. I looked over my shoulder behind me. Same thing. Everyone was frozen and silent. None of the other checkers were ringing anyone's items up. I was fucked now. I meekly responded to her, "Why no, ma'am." She stared at me for at least another thirty seconds and then grudgingly scanned in my bottle of wine. I paid cash for my items and I got the fuck out of that store. I am never going back. Ever. I'm sure I'm a marked man there now.