Weird stuff about Washington

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve been here less than a week, and already I’m finding weird stuff.

My mom and her husband really like Johnny Walker Blue Label. At $160 per bottle, it’s not something that they’d buy for themselves so that’s what I’ve been getting them for Christmas. The first weird thing about Washington is that you have to go to a liqour store to buy sauce. In California you can get most popular spirits at the market. I could go into a Trader Joe’s and get a 750 ml botttle of Jeagermeister with two glasses for $15. Here, you need to go to a liqour store, and a bottle without the glasses costs about $22.

Alcohol prices are steep. Fortunately I’m not much of a drinker. A bottle of Laphroaig that costs $32 at Trader Joe’s costs $53 up here. And you can only get spirits that are on the state’s list. Johnny Walker Blue is not on the list, so you can’t even get it here.

Another weird thing is that you can get your DMV stuff taken care of at the supermarket. Need tags for you car? Just go to the Department of Licensing counter. Weird. But very handy, IMO. And I don’t have to bring in my '66 MGB that is currently scattered around four shops in So. Cal. I just have to bring in the title. Sweet!

In L.A. I never needed my passport. Up here, close to the border, it’s a necessity. I wonder if I can get the Canadians to stamp it for me?

Yesterday at the Yamaha shop I heard a father tell his son, “We can go riding in the forest.” In So. Cal. we hear, “We went out to the desert.”

2

This should have gone into MPSIMS.

3

So let’s see, you can go to the grocery store and register a car, but can’t buy a bottle of scotch.

Odd.

4

This assumes that…

  1. You need a passport to enter Canada.

  2. You need to enter Canada on a regular basis.

I don’t know about 2, though I don’t remember needing a passport to visit Canada.

5

You don’t need a passport to enter Canada, but having one is easier than carrying your birth certificate around with you. Canada is like four miles away, so I’ll be going there a lot.

6

Last time I went to Canada, I didn’t even have to show an ID. From what I understand, if they did want an ID, a driver’s license was all that was needed for US citizens.

7

Moving this to MPSIMS.

8

Can I venture a guess???..
Bellingham…unless you are on one of the Islands?
( I live in Marysville, which is north of Everett, which is north of Lynnwood, which is north of Edmonds, which is north of Seattle, which is beside the point)

Welcome to Washington!

We didn’t need a passport to go to Canada, just make sure you have current ID…and for Petes sake, DO NOT MAKE ANY JOKES ABOUT GUNS OR BOMBS OR THREATS!!!
We had a friend who was traveling with his sister, mother, and grandmother…he decided to make some smart ass comment along the lines of his grandma hiding her gun…
They strip searched EVERYONE!!!
Yeah, granny was real pleased about that. :eek:

9

Hey, welcome Johnny L.A.!

If auntnut is right, you are northeast of me (up on a foothill mountaintop, south of auntnut, Everett and Lynnwood, east of Kirkland, under the rain). So when are you going to change your name to Johnny-stuck-on-the-floating-bridge? Or maybe Johnny-is-it-really-like-this-all-the-time?

Another weird thing about Washington? (This might be true of other states, just not ones where I’ve lived.) When you close on a house you aren’t all in the same room, around a big table, passing keys back and forth and signing stuff for a tense hour and a half. It’s pretty much all done without you and you only go in bring them the signed papers and the check. Anti-climactic, but still an improvement.

10

FWIW you can’t buy liquor in grocery stores in Mass. either. Or New York State. Or New Hampshire.

Your house closing description (the first part) is exactly how it is usually done here in Mass though…tense, hour and a half, passing keys back in forth, a lot of lawyers, you writing checks for more money than you ever hoped to see…

11

auntnut: Close. Birch Bay.

koeeoaddi: We did it by phone and FedEx. :wink: Actually, the guy who sold me the house still lives here. We’re best mates since high school.

12

You can at least buy beer, wine, and coolers in grocery and convenience stores in Washington. Here in Mass, you must go to a “package” store for any and all alcholic beverages. Lucky for me I’m a non-drinker. :slight_smile:

13

Johnny, if you’re going to be going across the border a lot:
http://www.ccra-adrc.gc.ca/customs/individuals/nexus/menu-e.html
It’s a easier way to get through - I believe you get prescreened and get some kind of pass. I’m actually not 100% sure of all of the details but it may be worth looking into.

14

Well of COURSE you cannot get Johnny Walker Blue here. It is EVVVILLLL!!! SHAME ON YOU for wanting JWB.

[sub]is it, like, BLUE or something?[/sub]

You didn’t always need anything other than a driver’s license to get through the border. That happened after 911. Now, I just take my birth certificate and actually they have never asked even for THAT. And it is getting BACK that appears to be the problem, according to my friends who didn’t HAVE a BC when trying to come back.

Me? I never have a problem. (Where’s that “perfect angel” smilie when you need it?) :smiley: So all you need to do is be a perfectly boring looking person with a sweet face. Then you have nothing to worry about. (heh…little do they KNOW!)

15

See, we pay extra for all kinds of stuff because we don’t have a state income tax. Gotta jack the prices on everything else to make up for it.

Just wait till you pay your electric bill at the beauty parlor. It’s quite neighborly, but, agreed, it’s weird.

I’m wary about venturing into Canada since my car got tossed for the better part of an hour, the last time. My advice to you: go with the Peace Arch, don’t go through one of the minor, less frequented crossings.

And welcome to Washington, Johnny L.A.!

16

Interestingly, I just got some humorous glurge from my Seattle-dwelling sister that went something like this:

*Once upon a time, God was missing for six days. Eventually, Michael the archangel found him, resting on the seventh day. He inquired of God, “Where have you been?”
God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds. “Look, Michael. Look what I’ve made.”

Archangel Michael looked puzzled, and said, “What is it?”

“It’s a planet,” replied God, “and I’ve put Life on it. I’m going to call it Earth and it’s going to be a great place of balance.”

“Balance?” Inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of earth . . .
“For example, there will be places of grassy plains and places of deep forests. There will be great sandy deserts and vast oceans of water,” God continued pointing to different countries. “This one will be extremely hot, while this one will be very cold and covered in ice.”

The Archangel, impressed by God’s work, then pointed to one land mass And said, “What’s that one?”

“Ah,” said God. “That’s Washington State, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful streams, hills, and forests. The people from Washington State are going to be handsome, modest, intelligent and humorous, and they are going to be found traveling the world. They will be extremely sociable, hardworking, and high-achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats, and carriers of peace.”

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration, but then proclaimed, “What about balance, God? You said there would be balance!”

God smiled, “Wait until you see the idiots I put in the other Washington.”*

17

Yes, it’s true that you don’t need a passport to get to or from Canada; but it makes it easier. The last time I went up without a passport, we had to go inside the office and stand in line to be allowed in. The first trip after 9/11/01, the U.S. border guard seemed angry with me because I didn’t have my birth certificate.

18

As pointed out by masonite, the higher liquor price is one result of having no income tax. TANSTAAFL.

Anyway, you think things are weird now? You shoulda been around while the “blue laws” (repealed in '68, just in time for my 21st) were in ful lswing. No alcohol sales on Sundays (at 12:00:01 all drinks had to be off the table, cooler doors were chained up, tarps were thrown over beer&wine aisles) was the least bizarre. Among the stranger ones:[ul][li]Want to move from one table to another? Sorry, you can’t carry your own drink—an employee of the establishment must do it for you.[/li][li]The entrance to the “lounge” must be no less than x feet from the establishment’s main entrance. (Side note: Washington has no “bars” as such—hard liquor licenses are only issued to businesses which are primarily engaged in selling food. Although I don’t think that rule is enforced as strictly nowadays.)[/li][li]A woman may sit at the bar in a cocktail lounge, but not in a tavern. Inference: a woman in a tavern is a tramp, but a woman in a cocktail lounge is a lady.[/li][li]A tavern must have windows (i.e., be visible from outside); a cocktail lounge need not. Like the previous, seems to make assumptions about the “quality” of the customers. Or perhaps the GPMs (Guardians of the Public Morals) watched too many Westerns, and wanted to leave plenty of opportunity for heaving patrons outside.[/li][/ul]So while the policies and practices of the Overgrown State are admittedly a little on the arcane side, they could be (and used to be) even more so.

One other question: you are aware, are you not, that Tim I-man runs the state? And you moved here anyhow?

19

Too obvious, perhaps, but I like Johnny WA. It makes you sound like an evil henchman in a Jackie Chan flick.

20

No, I’ve decided that Johnny L.A. is the perfect name for someone who doesn’t live in L.A. :stuck_out_tongue: