MIDWEST LAWS QUIZ

By Rick Kaempfer & Dave Stern



How well do you know the laws in the midwest? Take our handy "Midwest Laws" quiz. Those of you that don't live in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, or Wisconsin can be forgiven for not performing well on this quiz...the rest of you have no excuse.

Let's begin.

1. Animals
Which of the following Animal Laws is NOT an actual law somewhere in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin or Michigan?
A) You may not make faces at dogs
B) You may not catch a fish with your bare hands
C) You may not make a monkey smoke a cigarette
D) You may not “worry” a squirrel
E) You may not make balloon animals that are “anatomically correct”

2. “Adult Relations”
Which of the following “Adult Relations” Laws is NOT an actual law somewhere in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin or Michigan?
A) You may not have “adult relations” while hunting or fishing on your wedding day
B) You may not seduce or corrupt (“have adult relations with”) an unmarried girl
C) You may be arrested for “statutory relations” if your automobile passenger is under 17 and is not wearing socks or shoes
D) You may not fire a gun in the air because your woman has reached the pinnacle of “adult relations”
E) You may not have “adult relations” during halftime of a football game unless one team leads by more than seventeen points.

3. Sunday
Which of the following Sunday Laws is NOT an actual law somewhere in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin or Michigan?
A) You may not hum on public streets on Sunday
B) You may not collect rags on Sunday
C) You may not scowl at your wife on Sunday
D) You may not clean out your garage on Sunday

4. Hair
Which of the following Hair Laws is NOT an actual law somewhere in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin or Michigan?
A) Barbers may not threaten to cut off a kid’s ears
B) A woman may not cut her hair without her husband’s permission
C) It is illegal to cut a woman’s hair
D) A man with a mustache may not kiss a woman
E) A man with a mullet may not kiss a woman

5. Wildcard (defying category)
Which of the following Wildcard Laws is NOT an actual law somewhere in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin or Michigan?
A) You may not jostle others.
B) You may not throw an abandoned hoopskirt into the street
C) You may not attend a movie within four hours of eating garlic
D) You may not serve butter substitutes in prison
E) You may not show your wedding photos to a group of men

Answers: E, E, D, E, E. (These are not actual laws, but we highly recommend implementing them.)

The rest of the laws in our quiz are (or were) real laws somewhere in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin or Michigan.

Here's a little bit more about these actual laws. We're not kidding. Really.

Animals

This is by far the most stocked category of our region’s Best Laws. The first four laws we mentioned in the quiz are (or were) actual laws. In Normal, Illinois (ironically) it is against the law to make faces at a dog. In Indiana it is against the law to catch a fish with your bare hands. In La Crosse, Wisconsin it is illegal to worry a squirrel (“Hey Squirrel! Social Security will go bankrupt in 2042!). In South Bend Indiana, you may not make a monkey smoke a cigarette. In fact, it happened once in 1924, resulting in a $25 fine.

Adult Relations

We're betting that a lot of you guessed (A) for my adult relations quiz; the law about having adult relations while fishing or hunting on your wedding day. It just sounds like a fake law, but don’t tell that to the people of Oblong, Illinois. The law about seducing or corrupting an unmarried girl is a Michigan law enacted in 1931. The law about shooting off your gun (and they mean an actual gun here despite the context) after your woman experiences the “ultimate” in adult relations comes from the sleepy little town of Connorsville, Wisconsin. And that wonderful law about having a passenger in your car less than seventeen years of age with no socks and shoes on, that’s courtesy of the fine state of Indiana.


Sunday

We just love the law about humming on public streets on Sunday. This is against the law in Cicero, Illinois, former home-base of Al Capone. “Welcome to our fine town, Mr. Capone, but you there humming those church hymns after services, we’re taking you down to the slammer.” The law about collecting rags on Sunday has been added to the collection from Indianapolis, Indiana. And just so no one feels we’re slighting Michigan, the law against scowling at your wife on Sunday is from Detroit. They probably stopped enforcing it after hearing, “But officer, that wasn’t a scowl, it was a frown,” one too many times.

Only Wisconsin doesn’t have an odd Sunday law on the books. But then again, the Packers play on Sunday. Watching the Packers isn’t a law; it’s a commandment.

Hair

We would just like to say to the fine people of Elkhart, Indiana that it is about time somebody started cracking down on those barbers threatening children. Now if we could only get a law on the books banning parents from saying your eyes will stay that way if you cross them. That’s a freebie for a local legislature in one of our fine states.

The law about a woman cutting her hair without her husband’s permission is one of those laws (from Michigan by the way) that paints an immediate visual portrait, doesn’t it? Can’t you just picture that poor husband who came home one day expecting Peggy Lipton but got Judy Carne instead? These things need to be gradual. The more general law against cutting a woman’s hair comes from Wisconsin. No wonder Wisconsin’s own Tyne Daly didn’t become famous until leaving the state and cutting her hair.

As for the Eureka, Illinois law about mustachioed men being banned from kissing women; you may scoff at it, but there hasn’t been a Tony Orlando sighting in that town since the law was put on the books. And a similar law exists in Indiana, although the wording is slightly different. In Indiana mustaches are only illegal if the wearer has a tendency to habitually kiss women. And let’s face it; every state should have a law that pertains only to Burt Reynolds.


Wildcard

Each of the first four wildcard laws from the quiz is real and we should note their origin. In Galesburg, Illinois (probably the wackiest community in America), it is against the law to jostle others. In Grand Haven Michigan we’d like to think they’ve finally gotten that mad “hoop skirt discarding” problem under control by now. If not, it’s a $5 fine. In Gary Indiana, they really didn’t allow persons in a movie house (or a public streetcar for that matter) within four hours of eating garlic. And in Wisconsin they take the Dairy State title seriously enough to ban butter substitutes in prisons. Imagine the added cruelty of a prison sentence without margarine. It’s almost unthinkable.


A lesson learned

After doing the research on these laws it became painfully obvious to us that they all had one thing in common; they were probably instituted because of one specific incident. Therein lies the lesson for local and state legislatures. Think long term before you actually commit something like this to the books.

Here’s a rule of thumb: If somebody laughs when you say the new law, it’s probably not a good law.