Boozing in a small town - the trials and tribulations

[Artful Drunktective]

Please pardon me if this has been discussed before but forgive me, I’m a newb.

Now I don’t want to come across that I am not proud of my drunkard status, but here’s the situation. I live in a really small town. REALLY small. The good news is, we have a really high drunkard rate per capita as I imagine most small towns do. We just act like we don’t. But many of us fine upstanding drunkards have jobs in the community where we really don’t want co-workers and people outside our circle of friends to know the exact level of drunkardness we have achieved. I don’t know… I guess it has something to do with having a professional image to uphold or some shit.

Any dang way, the problem is that there are only a few small country stores / bait shop type places to buy booze. Of course these places are constantly teeming with townsfolk, many of whom you don’t want to notice the frequency of booze purchases that are being made (omniscient cashier aside). Sadly, my friend Beavis** resort to alternating between stores…going at off-times while most people are still at work...that sort of thing. You just wouldn’t believe the tremendous amount of skulduggery going on around here!

For example, if I see Uncle Tom** walk in the store to purchase a pack of smokes while I’m perusing the liquor aisle, that’s one thing. But if I see Uncle Tom walk in while I’m perusing the liquor aisle of a different store the very next day, that’s a whole other ballgame! There is just no privacy to drinking around here and I don’t need people looking at me like I’m an asshole for enjoying daily beverages when meanwhile Uncle Tom is probably hanging out in some aisle waiting for me to leave the store so he can head to the booze aisle himself. It is a sad reality, folks.

**Names have been changed to protect the identities of parties involved.

Beavis doesn’t want her family to know she drinks so she only buys booze at the store that her family DOESN’T frequent so they don’t find out. Then, when she knows she is going to be around them, she furtively looks around and then pours the booze in an empty Gatorade bottle with red food coloring as a decoy. For real!

Although he knows she drinks, she doesn't want her husband to know just how much (and how often) so she pulls the ol’ switcheroo. For those of you who don’t know, this is how it goes down.

1) While husband (or wife) is out, purchase two bottles of booze. In this case we will say vodka.
2) Put one bottle in the freezer.
3) Have a few beverages from the other bottle while the other one is chilling and then hide it someplace your husband will never look like the dirty laundry basket or a big ol’ box o’ Kotex. If you’re a man, I dunno hide it in like a tool box or your porn collection.
4) After you hide it, open the bottle in the freezer and proceed to drink until desired level of wastedness is achieved.
5) Right before your significant other comes home, switch the bottle you drank an entirety of from the freezer for the one you hid that is only missing a few drinks so it appears you didn’t drink that much

This is shit some of us actually do. Many of you may not be strangers to this debauchery, but you city drunkards and your glorious anonymity and choke loads of grocery and liquor stores cannot fathom the plight of small town boozers with reputations to uphold. It is a real thing.

I know most of you are probably going to say “who gives a damn what people think?!” and if I were anywhere else I would agree. But I am serious when I say it matters to me because I don’t need small town gossip talking about my “drinking problem”. There are just some professions people don't want to see boozing it up all the time...teachers...surgeons...drug and alcohol task force members perhaps?

No, I’m not going to move and no, I’m not going to stop drinking, and no don’t tell me to stock up at Sam’s Club or Costco because there aren’t any anywhere near so let’s put aside the obvious.

I would like your input my fellow drunkards. Please share your stories of small town boozing -good or bad- decoys and skulduggery that have been successful (or even unsuccessful) experiences. Us small town drunks are needing some fresh material on how to play it cool.

That aside, small town living has its benefits. It is safe and very little crime. There’s always plenty of peace and nature and remote places to get drunk. And…if you run out of ingredients to make a Bloody Mary, you can take the window screen off your neighbor’s house while they’re away at church and climb through and get what you need from their fridge and nobody seems to care.

Happy Friday my friends! Cheers!

[ThirstyDrunk]

I can understand your situation, and it seems as though you have many of the problems conquered simply by being stealthy in your purchase. You say " no don’t tell me to stock up at Sam’s Club or Costco because there aren’t any anywhere near so let’s put aside the obvious." I spent many summers in my younger years in a small town in a dry county. People drink. It is a fact. So we drinkers had to go to the store right on the county line (LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION!) to get booze. Funny thing is, when you go that far from town, the only people you run into that you know are other drinkers, which means usually a "HAHAHA Hey what's up" or maybe a simple smile and a nod if you don't know them that well. Folks aren't travelling clear out to the county line for their milk or chaw, so you have no worries of seeing someone you know that may disapprove. Stock up at this place. Go to the 7-11 on the other side of THAT town if it makes you feel comfortable, but stock up, make it worth the trip. Make it an adventure.

[beerguzzler]

fuck you bro....that is all

[Badfellow]

fuck you bro....that is all

Mind your southern manners there, rooster.

[Patchez]

One thing you could try is get into homebrewing as a "hobby" make wine or beer by the 5 gallon batch in your own home and none of the nosey nellies will be the wiser.

Mead (honey wine) is also an option but has a longer resting period, minimum a year more is better.

Either way is a good if not swift solution.

[oettinger]

Visiting a friend in some rural area is always fun and a test for your big town nerves at the same time.
Never liked the talk behind shut doors that was going on: "The drunks from town are in again" "Put the children inside" "Hide your daughters, and your car!" etc

To your little (Ha!) problem, I`d suggest, hmm ahem, well, don`t people smell it anyways? I have no clue what the matter is then.
You might try mixing it with something no one else in the family likes and put plenty of it in the freezer. Should they ask why you consume so much cold black tea drink just answer something about it being healthy n stuff.
Other idea would be: Go to your local church and ask the priest if he can storage for you. He`ll probably say something along the lines of: You are the third person this week asking me do it. Come on in...

[Mr. Viking]

I buy in bulk and keep a cellar. That way it is difficult to keep track. I usually have at least 6 bottles of wine and 10-20 bottles of spirits. This way I buy a bottle here, a bottle there, a few extra bottles if there's a party. This way even I can't keep track of how much I'm buying. As for the beer, there is no way i can hide that, I just buy a lot and buy regularly. I also brew alcohol. Since most people don't understand brewing, they have no idea how much booze I'm making when I buy 50l of apple juice in one go. Even better if you have a source of fruit, or beer making materials

[oettinger]

I buy in bulk and keep a cellar. That way it is difficult to keep track. I usually have at least 6 bottles of wine and 10-20 bottles of spirits.

That means we shoulnd`t worry when you disappear for a week again?

[Mr. Viking]

I buy in bulk and keep a cellar. That way it is difficult to keep track. I usually have at least 6 bottles of wine and 10-20 bottles of spirits.

That means we shoulnd`t worry when you disappear for a week again?

If I disappear for a week again just try looking in my shed

[Smatter Noguts]

Why would you give a fuck what the local happy preachers are thinking?
My last booze purchase at the Howard City Paki place totaled over $150 and the locals looked on as if I were Beowolf.
Look, THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE AND COME ON AND PARTY BECAUSE IT'S FUN!

[Frankennietzsche]

In re.: the ol' switcheroo...
A variant of this is to buy the biggest bottle of whatever it is and fill up the decoy or "show bottle". This may work best, probably, the smaller the "show bottle" is.

I would suggest forming some sort of secret buyers-club, but that may skirt the legal definitions of boot-legging.

[Badfellow]

One of the greater merits of the MDM boards are threads such as this that lace themselves with cumulative pearls of drunkard wisdom.
Let's review some of the options and tactics that have been presented thus far...

1) Stockpiling - Always take full advantage of any situation where you can purchase liquor in bulk at a reasonable price. And I'll go back to something I reiterated more recently: always have available more booze than you think you'll need. Be shameless and bold in your shrewdness when procuring an entire case of your favorite hard liquor at discount. Keep a cellar, a cabinet, a closet, or perhaps a well appointed hole in the ground out behind the wattle patch.

2) Make it yourself - Virtually any natural substance that contains sugars can be fermented into divine ethyl nectar with a simple application of yeast. This can be done quite cheaply at a basic level while giving you the opportunity to gain experience and perfect your craft. Beer and wine making are easily accessible to the novice. Distillation is a bit more tricky. Doing the fermentation yourself will also give you a deeper sense of respect for alcohol.

3) Organization - While I am not at liberty to expound upon the subject of secret booze societies or buyers clubs, it is prudent to remember there are many advantages in organized numbers. Go form a cult or a lodge, or an order of the drunkenly deranged. If you do become ordained and establish yourself a church, I suggest obtain your tax exemption status while the church is still relatively small. The baptisms alone might require several cases of vodka. Just saying. Might as well get it tax free for your faith.

4) Not giving a fuck - Change is often also effected by individuals on the ground level. Confronting the drys in the day to day social trenches takes guts, especially in a rural setting where the social networks are more condensed. But there is an undeniable freedom in not giving a fuck, a zen in the lifting of the burden imposed by other people's expectations and critical judgments. This is your armor. Let your weapon be the edge of sharp wits. Let your shield be a cocktail made to perfect taste. Let a smile be your umbrella and all that other jazzy shit. I'm done with it. I don't really give a fuck.


That's a quarter fifth of dark rum later. Here's looking forward to the other three quarters.
Drink with impunity.

[Artful Drunktective]

I was reflecting on Ghosts of Posts Past and came across this thread. If that town had a Nausea at the register, of course I wouldn't have given a shit. Although I had some laughs thinking about how it used to be, I'm so relieved I don't have to sneak around town anymore. Nobody even bats an eye when we are standing at the same check-out line every week with 12 bottles of vodka. It's liberating!

And thank you fine drunkards that offered your sound advice, it was appreciated!

[Nausea]

If that town had a Nausea at the register, of course I wouldn't have given a shit.

Definitely. I try to foster a positive drunkitude so that the Noble feel comfortable coming in several times a day.

"Welcome back!"

[Rye and Coke]

I legit got anxiety reading the original post. God, I remember those days, worried that the cashiers would look down on me for showing up twice in one weekend. Now I have a running network of 5 to 6 liquor stores of varying pricing that I float through, not to mention the bars. Ah, the joys of mature drinking once you've figured it all out.