R&R Strikes Again!

My apartment is, shall we say, quirky. The prior tenants were fond of getting drunk and punching holes in the walls and ripping the kitchen cabinets down. (Seriously - every single door had a hole in it.) The landlords made a lot of repairs before I moved in, but we keep finding new things that need maintenance. A heavy wind blew all the insulation out from under the house, and my pipes froze two weeks ago. The pump that brings fuel into the house had a leak and a loose switch that was propped up with a folded-up piece of paper. Those issues have both been fixed, but the heater upstairs has been on the fritz for awhile. The property manager finally figured out why. This is what he pulled out of the heater's fan:

Please note the Carhartt logo on his jacket.

That, my friends, is what my family used to call a "blooper." It is the top of an R&R bottle - the stopper that makes the liquor come out more slowly, in "bloops." It was jamming up the fan on my heater, which is now purring like a kitten, keeping my upstairs toasty warm, sans blooper.

59 Bottles of R&R on the Tundra...

A few days ago, I went on a walk on the tundra boardwalk, intending to get some fresh air and maybe take a few pictures. Instead, I found a new game to play: Count the R&R Bottles!

You see, R&R is the most popular alcohol around here. It stands for Rich & Rare Reserve (yes, I know that's three R's, not two) and is a "fine" Canadian whiskey. According to the website, it is "Full-flavoured and peppery with creamy maple syrup, clean oak, hints of rose petals, dark fruit, and tangy oranges." According to my esteemed colleagues who have taste-tested it in a purely academic pursuit, it is a cross between melted-down licorice and cough medicine. However, it has one unique characteristic that redeems it above all else: it is dirt cheap.

You see, Bethel is "damp." That means that it is somewhere between "dry" and "wet" on the legality of alcohol. Most of the surrounding villages are completely dry, meaning alcohol is completely prohibited in all forms, making "hootch" production quite the business enterprise. (And also, "hootch" is fun to say.) In Bethel, it is legal to possess and consume alcohol, but there is no way to buy it - there are no bars, the restaurants can't serve it, and there are no liquor stores. You can bring it in from Anchorage, but that gets expensive pretty fast...thus, the popularity of R&R.

Additionally, PFD season is upon us. PFD stands for Permanent Fund Dividend; this is the famous "the government pays you to live in Alaska!" money that is distributed to every Alaska resident in late October. It comes from the oil money and varies each year; this year, the amount was $878. That means that every man, woman, and child who lived here during the calendar year 2011 received $878. (Alas, I do not yet qualify, as I have not been a resident for a calendar year.) It also means that that October is a joy-filled time full of PFD sales on expensive merchandise and lots of drugs, drunkenness, and debauchery that make the ER a glorious place to work if you love trauma and treating people high on interesting substances.

This brings me back to my original story: Count the R&R Bottles. Whilst wandering across the tundra boardwalk, I noticed quite a few empty bottles on either side of the walk. On a whim, I started counting. In the mile-and-a-half walk between Owl Park and Pinky's Park, I counted 59 empty bottles of R&R, among other litter. I made other very scientific observations as well:

Leslie's Very Scientific Observations Regarding R&R Bottles on the Tundra

1. R&R bottles were usually found between 1 and 6 feet from the boardwalk, but never more than 8 feet, suggesting that throwing an R&R bottle far after one has emptied it in the traditional fashion may be difficult.

2. R&R bottles can occasionally found in clusters of two, but never more than two. They are usually lone findings on the tundra.
3. The highest concentration of R&R bottles can be found around the benches set slightly off the boardwalk in the open tundra, not, interestingly, surrounding the covered pavilions that could perhaps offer some shelter from the elements.
4. The next most common findings were empty cigarette boxes, Vitamin Water, Rockstar/Monster energy drinks, and Powerade. No other type of alcohol container was found more than once.
5. The lowest concentration of R&R bottles was in the immediate vicinity of both parks, a reassuring finding. Interestingly, the concentration of other bottles and cigarette boxes remained constant, suggesting this finding would approach statistical significance if formal analyses were undertaken.