I’m from Ohio, all my readers know that. And yes… I’ve transplanted to Massachusetts (what feels like eons ago). One thing I always enjoy is poking fun at some of the things that I find just a tad insane about my fellow Bay Staters. You know I love you all, but boy… sometimes you really take the cake for strange and bizarre. I know I wrote a piece at some point on this, but I can’t find it for the life of me, and with 24″ of wonderful white stuff, I just had to poke some fun.
Let’s take the good ole’ nor’easter grocery blast. The first winter I moved here, they were calling for 6″-8″ on a Tuesday. I really didn’t think much of it, because 6″-8″ was a pretty normal snowfall where I grew up in Central Ohio and later when I lived in Montana it wasn’t much to sneeze at.
So, I casually go into the Market Basket grocery store and there is flurry of people running around filling grocery carts to the max with bottles of water and dry goods. Later I stand there and watch as they are (literally) running for the checkout line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6zaVYWLTkU?autoplay=1&w=350&rel=0&showinfo=0
I walked over to the manager of the store and asked “Is there an emergency I’m not aware of?”
She looked at my like I had three heads and replied, “Yes, haven’t you heard about the storm?”
I felt awkward, I said “There’s still only a max of eight inches, right? I mean they haven’t changed the prediction to like five feet or anything? They are planning on actually clearing the roads within three days of the snow fall, right?”
She stared at me and nodded. “So, why is everyone shopping like there won’t be food for three weeks?” I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders, “It’s what people do whenever there is any kind of storm coming.”
To this day that mentality has always bugged me, especially when I need to do some legitimate grocery shopping and there is a storm coming. As it turns out, after doing some research, there is a valid history (of mental damage) that causes people’s panic of the storm. The Blizzard of ’78, which I remember in Ohio, but of course was too young to know about what happened in Massachusetts. Apparently there were two separate storms of 2 feet (or more) of snow. They towed thousands of cars off route 128 and arrested anyone who was on the road.
So let’s examine some of the other “ONLY in Massachusetts” oddities:
- Alcohol can only be sold in liqueur stores, you can’t buy any in grocery stores, not even beer.
- “Happy Hour” is illegal with alcoholic beverages
- Goatees are illegal unless you first pay a special license fee for the privilege of wearing one in public.
- North Andover has a law that prohibits the use of space guns. (huh?)
- A state law prevents gorillas from riding in the back seat of any car.
- In most urban areas, there is a Dunkin Donuts within 1/10th of a mile of another Dunkin Donuts
- Worcester is pronounced Wuhstah
- Gloucester is pronounced Glohstah
- Wicked = Awesome (Unlike us mid westerners that say “Man! F**kin’ A!”)
- A Frappe is a Milkshake and a milkshake is just gross.
- Massholes are typical drivers.
- Hoodsie cups are cups of ice cream (P.S. don’t read the ingredients)
- The North Shore and The South Shore might as well be separate states.
- To take an hour to go 15 miles is normal.
- Subsequently, distance to a location in Boston is measured in ‘time it takes to get there’, not miles.
Fellow Bay Staters, have any others that should be added?
Jason, you funny guy!!