Election day = no alcohol sales

At the local supermarket very early this morning, I saw a sign hung on the door: "No beer sales today on account of the election," and I was inspired to blog a bit about both topics: Norwegian politics and the Norwegian relationship with booze.

This is the booze post. Hopefully the politics post will follow quick on its heels.

I have written a bit before about how people booze here, so forgive me if this isn't new to you, but it's one of the few things that irritate me about living here. When Norwegians drink, many of them drink until either all the booze or all the money is gone, and then they get aggressive. Shouting matches, fistfights, and smashed shop windows are a part of every Friday and Saturday night in the center of town, where the cops have a couple of paddy wagons parked all night, and by and large people seem to accept "I was drunk" as an excuse for the most antisocial behavior. In the local cinema amidst the "coming attractions" you will see a short film made by the local police department which chronicles a young man's night out from the start of the evening with drinks at home until he gets caught relieving himself in public a few liters of beer later and gets hit with a hefty fine. On busses you'll see ads with two cops booking a young man in handcuffs with the caption urging people not to let their evenings out end this way. No place else I know do the police feel the need to advertise to let people know it's not a good thing to get arrested.

Being drunk and stupid is sort of a teenage rite of passage in many cultures, including my own. I went through it like most everybody else; I did a few things I regret and other things I'm really glad I did because I never would have had the guts to try them sober. But sometime between sixteen and twenty-five you GROW UP. The way in which hangovers get progressively less fun as you get older may have a bit to do with that, but mostly it's that you're moving on in your life. You might have a good glass of twelve-year-old scotch, perhaps, instead of a half-liter of Kentucky's best $10 vodka drowned in a half-gallon of Sunny Delight.

Someone my age I talked to recently in the States had just gotten a call in the middle of the night from a family member who needed to be bailed out of jail. He told me, "This guy is FORTY-TWO years old and HE GOT ARRESTED FIGHTING IN A BAR." He said it in with exactly the same utter contempt with which he would have said "HE GOT ARRESTED EXPOSING HIMSELF TO CHILDREN." Here a lot of people would just shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, he must have been pretty drunk."

So alcohol prices here are sky-high to keep people in one of the world's richest countries from being able to afford getting too drunk. Alcohol sales stop at 6pm most days and 3pm on Saturdays. And on Election Day, if there are important decisions to be made, it's best not to let folks drink at all. Sad, really.