If I do move, the laws have to make sense

My mom very much wants me to move back to Minnesota to be closer to her. Right now that isn’t a possibility, financially or emotionally. But I’ve agreed to consider it a few years from now.

However, the longer I stay where I am, the happier I am here. Still, I think the desire to spend as much time as possible with my mom while she’s alive will eventually drive me back north.

No, the cold doesn’t bother me. Well, it does, but I can live with it more easily than many others. I have to say this about winters in Minnesota: if it snows, there are plenty of plows to keep the roads clear. Where I live now that isn’t the case, not in the least. It isn’t unusual for some roads–and some parking lots–to never get plowed.

And while the law in Minnesota requires people to clear the sidewalks in front of their homes, the law here is tricky. If you shovel a path and someone later slips and falls, they can sue you. If you never tend to the sidewalks, there’s no recourse for the fallen. The law is similar for parking lots.

A few years back someone had the brainy idea to publish obscure or wacky laws throughout the United States. I don’t know if shoveling laws from any state made it on that list, but a quick Google search uncovered these fun facts:

• It is illegal for women to drive while wearing a house coat in California.
• In Texas, it is illegal to milk another person’s cow (that one has a germ of sense–it could be theft–but in practical terms is a tad foolish).
• In Los Angeles, it is illegal to wear a zoot suit. That has to be problematic on some movie sets.

No doubt each state has it share of crazy laws, and no doubt each of these laws had some common sense at its inception. We all know how, in our nation’s capital, laws that make it through Congress usually have some sort of attachment that seems completely unrelated (and likely is) to the law in question. That’s crazy, but that’s politics.

Well, I titled this post “If I do move, the laws have to make sense,” but we all know that isn’t wholly possible. I’ll just have to leave my house coats and zoot suits at home when I visit my relatives in California.

Image Credits: Map © Bigstock; Zoot Suit © stock.adobe.com