New laws for a new year would settle my pet peeves | Opinion

With each new year come new laws, and 2023 is no different.

New laws taking effect this year deal with issues as diverse as zoo animals to the governor’s ability to invoke a state of emergency to licensing barbers. All are presumably designed to make some aspect of our lives better.

That’s all groovy, but there are other laws that could be enacted to make navigating our state easier. Maestro, hit it:

First would be the National Anthem Protection Act, which would make it a crime for any singer at a public event to make “The Star Spangled Banner” last longer than seven minutes — not because it disrespects the song, but because sometimes the game is almost over by the time some self indulgent young singing prodigy gets to “of the braaaaaaaaaaaaaave.”

The Save Our Nog Act would require stores to sell eggnog year-round. How frustrating it is to go into your favorite nog vendor on Dec. 26 only to be told, as I was in Food Lion this year and last year and the year before that, that there won’t be no mo’ until next year.

My buddy Curtis, one of the great nog hunters in captivity, usually calls me a week or so after Thanksgiving to alert me to the first nog sighting and I dutifully rush out, buy a couple of gallons and drink myself into a stupor. It takes a few weeks to regain one’s equilibrium from the Nog Fog, but by then “eggnog season” is over and we’re left, once again, running from store to store in search of that sweet, thick nectar.

Another law that would enrich our lives is the No White After Labor Day Act. No, it wouldn’t prohibit one from wearing white after Labor Day, but it would levy a fine against any pearl-clutching faux fashionista who says “You know, you aren’t supposed to wear white after Labor Day.”

C’mon, yo. We’re in North Carolina: It might be 80 degrees in December and you want me to break out my crushed velvet jumpsuit just because of an arbitrary date on a calendar?

The legislature should impose a Put That Danged Camera Away and Eat Act, making it a misdemeanor to take more than two pictures of your meal to share with your 11 Instagram followers.

This may just be a pet peeve, because when I commented on a diner taking shots of her waffle at a restaurant as though she were a Vogue photographer, my buddy Maurice checked me: “Man, leave that woman alone and let her do what she wants to do with her food.”

He was, of course, right. But still, legislature: Pass the bill.

There’s also a need for a Shrimp & Grits Preservation Act to guard against people like the astonishingly inconsiderate woman I saw at the buffet bar assiduously picking all the shrimp from the shrimp and grits.

You know what you get when you remove all the shrimp? You get grits, which are good under any circumstances, but certainly aren’t — without shrimp — worth $20 a plate. The restaurant has since gone out of business, and I’m guessing diners being unable to find shrimp in their shrimp and grits contributed to its demise.

First offense: $50 fine. Second offense: a lifetime of eating nothing but Cream of Wheat.

Speaking of food, let’s make it a misdemeanor to order a chopped barbecue sandwich without coleslaw. Anyone who does that is not to be trusted.

Then there’s the Peace at the BP Preservation Act, which would make it a misdemeanor to leave your car stereo blasting while you run into the gas station to get a Slim Jim and Funyuns. The lawful exception would be if your whip is thumping Al Green, in which case “turn that mutha UP!”