Sample This!

Try before you buy. It's a tried and true marketing method of allowing consumers to try something for free before they drop coin to buy it. It's worked for many different products across many different categories.

According to an AP report, lawmakers in the Pacific Northwest state of Washington now want to give it a whirl for alcohol. Last week they approved a one-year pilot program that will allow beer and wine tasting in a mere 30 grocery stores statewide.

Now, Washington covers 71,303 square miles (making it the 18th largest state) and as of 2006 had an estimated population of 6,395,798 people.

This measure, which is strongly supported by the state's microbrewery and wine industries, lets shoppers sample as much as 4 ounces of beer or wine. That's more then some beer fests give out! Supporters of the measure say that you can't buy this kind of publicity for the small guys with no marketing budget. It's a win-win for everyone! Or so you would think...

As with every single thing throughout the history of man- there are going to be people:

1. with nothing better to do
2. who are only happy when they're bitching about something
3. that strap their Birkenstocks on too tight
4. that don't get enough protein in their vegan diet
5. who don't get it
6. who think alcohol is devil water
   
7. who are all of the above

Thus, there really are opponents to this measure. Remember, this is only going to be allowed in a mere 30 grocery stores throughout the entire state. And what pray tell are they protesting? They say it will set a bad example by exposing children to alcohol consumption.

Excuse me for one moment while I vomit.

OK, I'm back. Can you believe this? They must be the very same people who whole heartedly believe exposure to video games will turn a child into a violent, psychopathic criminal.

A little suds sipping or vino chugging in a grocery store is going to expose children to alcohol consumption, huh? Hmm... I'm pretty damn sure the 5,987,211 beer commercials shown on television have that covered. If not, then the zillion billboards littered across the land, or the 47 bajillion liquor stores (where parents take their kids while buying alcohol), or the quadrillion sports bars (where parents take their kids to watch the Big Game and drink alcohol) long ago exposed them to - drinking alcohol. Do these bastich "opponents" not think that parents drink at home in front of their children (thus slowly turning them into devil water drinkin' miscreants)?

The mentality in this country about sex, drugs and alcohol is asinine on a level that is incomprehensible. The staid, ultra-conservatives who constantly rail about how bad bad bad these things are have only made it worse. God gave everyone common sense... how about people start using it? What these morons have done is turned these "taboo" topics into things that we overindulge in because they've been "forbidden" for so long. Look how well Prohibition and the War on Drugs turned out.

So a bit of advice for those bastich "opponents" against this benign measure: Go have a beer or two. It'll help relax the sphincter constriction dysfunction you suffer from.