An In-depth Analysis of Sacks. (Among other things)

So with any luck this will be my first real post of any use. Here they are, the cultural differences I have noticed between Maryland and Boulder.

1. More crazy people - Every time I walk past Pearl Street Mall, or pretty much anywhere with people I am either confronted, or nearly escape being confronted by crazy people. Just yesterday in fact, a drunk lunatic asked me if I was a student. I responded sort of. Then he asked me if I studied, the ganj. I responded yeah, sure, I study the ganja. After this point he was distracted by someone who apparently looked like John Lennon, and I went on my merry way. This was by far the most normal human interaction I've had with strangers on the street out here. See back home, I didn't have to deal with that, since in the early 90's they rounded up all the homeless people and used them to revamp the People Tree.

2. Area code laziness - People don't write their area codes here. You still have to dial them, but everyone just assumes you have 303. Sometimes they might write 3/and then the number, but rarely the full one. This poses a problem because a common middle to the numbers here is 44X which is similar to my MD cell's area code, thus if I need to give people my number they assume I mean it's (303) 443-XXXX. This also happened yesterday.

3. Pop - Most of Boulder's population (at least those I have come into contact with) immigrated there from all around America, so we get many different regional vocabularies. So more often then not if they want a soda, they'll ask you for a pop. Pure lunacy. I refer once again to "More Crazy People" above. Clearly soda makes more sense. As everyone clearly knows soda is called soda because the main ingredient is baking soda, and more importantly soda does not pop it fizzes. None of this matters of course, since I never see soda anymore, what with environment of wellness and all that often causes me mental anguish (I am of course referring to a certain Pharmacy where I spend most of my time).


4. Sacks? - Finally, when checking a customer out I am supposed to ask if they'd like a bag for the shit they bought. Naturally I forget to ask them, or sometimes I don't like their face, or the way they slide their credit card through my delicate card reader so I don't give them a bag out of spite. In this situation they will then ask me if they could have a bag, but I'd say one out of every ten customers asks for "a large sack" or "a small sack." This, like everything else in the world, bothers me for a number of reasons. In my opinion a sack is made of burlap. A sack is durable and serves an important purpose. Keeping leprechauns out of your potatoes. Holding in your testicles. Carrying an endless supply of presents for good, god-fearing children on Christmas Eve draped on the back of a certain jolly old man. Certainly a sack is not two small plastic (or cornstarch rather) sheets seamed together to open up on the top end, and hold a meager, yet fantastically expensive amount of beauty products and herbal cold medicine. That's a bag. And yet what does your beloved Drakos ask a customer the other day, "Would you like a small sack for that?" And so begins my slow descent into madness. I'd bet you'd say I don't really have much further down I can go.

This has led me to a slightly different train of thought, that deserves it's own post.