Though I'm not much of a fan of commenting on my personal life via internet (at least since I stopped shopping at hot topic and spending hours on myspace) today is a big day for me. Today is the last day that I will ever be able to indulge in underage drinking. While most people would be celebrating the fact that they will now be able to legally go out to establishments, spend entire paychecks on overpriced booze and get sweat on by strangers, I am, I must say a bit sad. As of midnight tonight, I will no longer have to sketchily sit in cars while I wait for my roommates to buy me cheap beer. So, as a birthday present to myself, I am allowing an entirely self-absorbed, completely personal post: My Top Five Underage Drinking Experiences.
5) The first time I blacked out: This was not by any means one of my favorite experiences, but it was important in my history of alcoholism nonetheless. I was but a mere child of sixteen, foolish and free, coming off of an ill-advised straight edge phase. In attempts to impress an older boy in a ska band (Dear God, what WAS I thinking????) I arrived with him at a college drop-out's house and began emptying shots of spiced rum down my virgin throat. Cut to the next morning. I am in the basement, lying on the cement, with two slices of wheat bread and a glass of water beside me. Ska boy made out with my friend Becca when I was passed out in the bath tub, after puking my small intestine up all over the bathroom.
4) When I met my friend Christina: My freshman year of college was filled with a lot of irresponsible-at-best rendezvous with underage drinking. But this one was relatively harmless and both entertaining and beneficial towards the rest of my college career. Freshman Jenn is not very happy with college; her roommates are vapid bitches, her dorm is full of bleach-blonde sluts, and every boy that she talks to seems to think she wants to have sex with him. And none of them are cute. Sitting outside, smoking a Marlboro Light outside of her Pierpont dormitory, she strikes up a conversation with a girl she overhears trash-talking the residents of the building. This is Christina.
Christina: They're just all catty sluts and whores. I really can't stand it. Like we're in college now, we're not supposed to act like middle school bitches to each other.
Jenn: You're a bitch.
Christina looks at Jenn, eyes wide, taken aback by her assessment.
Jenn: I love it.
The two then traverse into the building flanked by two random guys that latched on to Christina when they saw the 30 rack that she was carrying around like a friggin' purse. Inside, the rack is emptied, then subsequently made into a bull-shaped pinata and filled with gummy bears.
3) The time I broke my wrist: While the splint was annoying, the story was hilarious. At least to me. Alana, Allison, and I got tickets to see a concert at the Mullins Center, a large venue on my school's campus. As college students, we felt obligated to get shitfaced prior to the show, and ended up downing homemade apple schnapps and Wild Turkey with visiting Kate in the room of some boys we were friends with upstairs. We got sufficiently drunk, then headed out, leaving Kate in the trusted hands of our friends and their alcohol. Kristen worked at the Mullins Center, and scored us wristbands so that we could get down to the floor instead of being confined to our balcony seats. Unfortunately, the floor crowd was a little too rowdy for my drunken state and I got pushed down, landing hard on my wrist. All 100 pounds of Allison sailed through the air at the assailant, punching the 15-year-old high schooler as hard as she could. I only realized my wrist hurt when my adrenaline died down and I sobered up a bit. I then called my roommate insisting that she come get me because I couldn't walk back to the dorm with my wrist injured (???). She was a chump, so she obliged and came and got us. Back at the dorm, we ventured upstairs to find Kate belligerently drunk, the Wild Turkey gone, and our friends very annoyed. One of the boys played rugby so I asked him to wrap my rapidly-swelling forearm, as he was used to caring for injuries. He must have done this three or four times that night, because each time he did, Kate decided I was fine and removed the bandage and yanked my wrist around. Two days later I finally went to the hospital and yeah, it was broken.
There are two linch pins that make this story funny. One is that as we arrived back at the dorm we told my roommate she could park in a lot nearer the building than her usual one. We promised she wouldn't get a ticket. She got a ticket. We promised we'd pay. We didn't. She sucked. The other is that I broke my wrist at a Taking Back Sunday concert.
2) Brush with the law: Junior year I dated a boy named Bryan from Northeastern who didn't drink at all. However, I still did. One of the weekends he came up to visit me, I took him to a big house party. The entire way there Bryan was nervous, certain that the cops were gonna come and we would all be arrested. His assumptions wavered on the side of reasonable seeing as the owner of the house had been arrested earlier that day for underage possession of alcohol. But he got bailed out, so we though it was cool. When we got there, the house was packed, and Bryan got even more freaked out. The whole time I assured him that the cops wouldn't come. The cops came. Perhaps in part due to the fact that my friend Brandon ordered chicken wings to the house the party was at. So, like mature, integrity-filled college students, we ran like hell. Brandon managed to intercept his chicken wings en route to the house, and none of us got arrested. Alana through up mid-step while walking back to her dorm. It was awesome.
1) Kristen's 20th Birthday: Kristen turned 20 our sophomore year on a Friday. So, we obviously began drinking after class, which was at around ten in the morning. The drinking continued at the dining hall, and was punctuated only by naps throughout the rest of the day. The girl was nearly moved to tears when we presented her with her touching gift: a cigarette disposal container Klaiber and I had stolen and had all of our friends draw on. Night fell, and for some reason the entire dorm seemed to have spilled out on the lawn outside. It was there that we noticed SOMEONE HAD STOLEN OUR PICNIC TABLE. Our eyes all immediately flashed to Butterfield, the freshman dorm at the top of the hill. Alana and I headed up to retrieve it. Unfortunately it was very heavy. We sat on the table, kicking and hissing as the freshmen encircled us. But luck was with us that night. A horde of boys from our dorm came to our rescue and helped us carry the table back down the hill, during which I ate shit a few times. The night only ended when the lighting sky reminded us it was nearly morning.
So that's it. The most memorable (or unable to be remembered) experiences of my time as an underage drinker. There were many things I could have included, like the time a boy chased me out of a party shoeless, or when I woke up in protective custody after being spotted drunk upon my first step out of a club. But these 5 are the ones that I cherish, that I wish I had pictures of. So, kiddies, enjoy your time as an underage drinker. You'll feel a lot less badass when it's gone.
