Yes, Virginia, there are dry counties

I had a peculiar experience whilst shopping for groceries the other day.

A man stopped me and asked where the beer was.

I told him, "they don't sell alcohol at this store."

He asked if there were any other stores nearby that did.

"Nope. This is a dry county. No alcohol."

The revelation seemed baffling to the man, but his wife/girlfriend found it to be entertaining. "Ha ha ha! I've never heard of a dry county before! See, we're from Daytona Beach.."

I tried explaining to him where he might get some alcohol in a county not too far from where we were, but he gave the old "I'm not from around here" and refused to hear any directions from me. Still, he thanked me and he walked off, with the woman laughing all the while.

Yes...there are dry counties. I didn't appreciate the laughter at the expense of where I live. The people reacted as if I had just told them the Easter bunny was cleaning a spill on aisle 4 and that the Loch Ness Monster was behind them checking egg cartons for cracked eggs.

The "Dry county" shouldn't be a hard concept to understand. Some counties are dry because they are highly religious communities who don't approve of alcohol; some counties probably do it to try to prevent drunk driving.

But quite frankly, I'm not surprised someone couldn't understand that, coming from Daytona Beach and all...