Mmmmm, mint!
I suppose mouthwash is less likely than liquor to be kept behind the counter in stores.
As I recall it, it was a second hand account of somebody else’s prank that Penn & Teller were recounting in one of their books.
There’s an urban legend that Listerine (the original light brown “medicine” flavor) has an ingredient that makes you vomit if you drink it, supposedly to keep alcoholics from od’ing on the stuff. The prankster was working for an ad agency which had an account with Listerine. There was a mock-up display of “Listerine” that was actually just colored water.
There was a meeting scheduled with some people who were unaware that the display Listerine was fake. During the course of the meeting the legend about the vomit inducing ingredient was mentioned (and apparently it was brought up by somebody who wasn’t in on the joke). The prankster claimed that he had a really strong stomach and could drink an entire bottle of Listerine without throwing up. Some people discouraged him and others were egging him on and eventually he drank the “Listerine”. Apparently his performance of how horrible it tasted was so convincing that he made two other people in the room throw up.
I lived in a damp village here on Kodiak for five years, damp meaning that no alcohol could be bought or sold in the village, but could be purchased in the town of Kodiak and brought back into the village. Alcoholism is a terrible scourge in the village, and it is very common for residents to spend the majority of their money on bringing in alcohol. It’s not a terrible problem for those few who are financially stable enough to maintain an alcohol supply, but many of the elders are on welfare and/or Social Security. When there was a store there year round it was common for those elders who had been on a binge drunk to run out of booze and begin to go into D.T.'s to purchase mouthwash, aftershave, baking extracts, etc. just to keep the bugs on the walls at bay. Some will even drink Blazo, a white gas, just to keep the shakes away. As nasty as the thought of drinking these products is, one whiff of some “homebrew” was enough to gag me, and while it’s a terrible thing, I am able to understand the preference to Listerine over fermented potatoes, not to mention the amount of time it takes for potatoes to reach a decent potency, or so I am told.
That is generally true; more specifically, I can’t think of a single liquor store downtown. A bunch of bars and restaurants, but I don’t think there’s a liquor store. Also, theft under $25 from a large chain store doesn’t generally result in either an arrest or a trespass order, so they’re less likely to be hauled off to jail for stealing a $2 bottle of generic mouthwash from a large corporation than they would be for stealing a $5 bottle of vodka from an independent retailer.
::Takes quick look at bottle of Purell:: Wow, I wouldn’t have expected that. Why would they use ethyl instead of isopropal?
::Thinks about tasting it::