Someone Else’s Ode

I’ve seen parts of this starting to pop up in AIM profiles and other people’s diary. I won’t claim credit for being the first to write it. That must go to Jackie Joliat, according to the website, whoever she may be. But I’m posting and saving this here for my sake. To remind me I’m not as crazy as I think and to remind me of those nights I crammed, not into 4 years as this suggests, but 3 summer months.
This makes me laugh cry and scream all at once.

Ode to Collegiate Alcoholism

College students are truly a rare breed. Week after week we put ourselves through the gauntlet of flip-cup tournaments, keg stands, ice luges, and power hours only to pass out briefly and wake up at obscene hours of the morning to re-fuel our still-intoxicated bodies with a few more beers all in the name of tailgate. We also lack any legitimate sense of time. We “pre-drink” until eleven. 12:40 classes are “early.” We know 1:30 a.m. as “last call” because we have been going to the bars since we were 17 with fake I.D.s. There is a day of the week referred to as “Boozeday.”

We college kids undoubtedly have a subculture unto ourselves. Some people play basketball, we play beer pong. Some people wait all year for Christmas or Thanksgiving, we wait all year for St. Patty’s Day, New Years Eve, and Superbowl Sunday. Some drink orange juice for breakfast, we throw back a Busch Light because we hear its a good cure for that hangover. We can turn anything into a drinking game.

We live in our own world, a world where jungle juice seems like a good idea, being awake at 4 a.m. is normal, “wanna do a body shot” is a sufficient pick-up line, and 21st birthdays are an entity unto themselves. We have become aware that alchohol makes us say, do, and wear things that would, in a sober state, be out of the question. Watching our friend make out with a stranger in front of cheering spectators is raw comedy, kegerators become the greatest invention the world has ever seen, and we “discover” things that seem utterly amazing…like malt liquor…and Beerios…

We nickname beers. If we’re at the bar and we ask for a “Beast” or a “Natty,” the bartender knows what we’re talking about because he’s probably in college too. We have drunken alter-egos and we name them. A few shots down the hatch and we suddenly turn into “Rico Suave” the tequila-chugging wonder…We are experts at Kings, never running out of tricky categories or a clever rule. We draw on the faces of passed out friends, we know that empty fifths make great decorations in our apartments (also note: empty kegs can be sweet coffee tables), and we have done a “shotski”.

We make friends while we are drunk and we assign them an adjective that will forever precede their name in order to distinguish them from the rest of the “friends” we make while drunk (also because we do not know their last names.) “Sloppy Tom,” “Chicago Sarah,” and “Creepy Steve” will always be near and dear to our hearts.

We have no money because we spent it all on beer. This, unfortunately, is also why we drink Povov and Crazy Horse, and trust us, that takes heart. It grows on us after awhile…or after we’ve taken too many shots to remember that what we’re drinking tastes like gasoline. The lack of money situation is also why if we see someone sipping a Corona, they are a baller, and we will make friends with them.

After a long night of bonging beers at a house party, bravely resisting the urge to drunk dial (and/or drunk IM) all of our ex-boyfriends, then going shot-for-shot with a frat boy at the bar, we wake up hugging an empty box of wine in our underwear on our best friend’s kitchen floor with a million questions running through our pounding heads. We wake up with random incoherent numbers in our cell phones (“Who the hell is ‘grEenshirtb4oy’?”), random pictures on our cameras (“Look, here’s one of so-and-so humping that Corona guy on the dance floor…”), a mere 73 cents left in our wallets (“I didn’t know Hold ’em was a drinking game?”), and a desperate desire to lay in bed for the rest of our lives…it is then that we swear off drinking forever…for real….we really mean it this time….

Yet, after shotgunning a brewski or two and kickin back with a 40, we head to the shower, beer in hand, and get ready to begin our evening once again. It takes balls, simply put. We know how to party. We have honed and perfected our art. We are lushes, bar stars, and boozehounds.

Why do we act this way you ask? Because we can. Because in 4 short, blurry years we will have to enter the “real world”. So for the time being we will live it up…As long as there are beers to be drank and shots to be taken, we will be there…as long as there are case races to be won and frat houses to pass out in, we will be there…as long as there are tables to be danced on and annoying eighties songs to sing loudly along to, WE WILL BE THERE!…but we’re not gonna lie, we probably won’t remember it.