As some of you might have noticed, I didn't get a chance to live blog my St. Patrick's Day experience, but believe me when I say that it wasn't for a lack of trying. I had the damndest time getting drunk on St. Pat's, and though I'll have to consult a Catholic about this, I'm pretty sure that has got to be some kind of cardinal sin. My original plan involving a bottle of Irish whiskey took a back seat to the insistence of friends. No, it wasn't another intervention. I think that may be scheduled for a three-day block in mid June. Rather, my friends on various plots along the average sobriety spectrum insisted that I join them out in the world for what was promised to be a respectable night out of relaxing self-harm. It didn't go so well as that, though.
The first mistake we made... well, not we. Personally, I never thought it was a good idea to go to a faux Irish pub located smack dab in the middle of a college campus. See, people go to bars for a variety of reasons. Some go to be social (fried food bar and grills), some go to try to get laid (meat markets), some try to be trendy (so loud I can't hear myself slur bars) and some go for a cheap fix (dives). Me, I guess I'm just not very creative. I go to movie theaters to watch films, I go to restaurants to eat and I go to bars to consume alcohol. That in mind, college campuses are the worst places on Earth outside of Utah and Saudi Arabia to get soused.
Case in point, that sorry excuse for a licensed establishment I foolishly agreed to go to on St. Patrick's Day. Was I happy about the exorbitant cover charge? No, but I figured it might be worth it and I didn't want to be a prick to my well-meaning friends. Was I insulted by the seven dollar plastic cup of whiskey someone assumed was reasonable? Damn straight I was. But hey, it was St. Pat's. Supply, demand and sin tax are what they are. All these things, while unreasonable, are all part of the game. Watered-down beer, however, is not. In fact, in most states diluting liquor is illegal and can get an establishment's license taken away.
I should have seen that last one coming, though. College kids (and they are kids) are mostly new to drinking so they don't know what to expect. Like virginal boys who imagine that breasts feel like water balloons or bags of sand, college kids have no idea that a proper pint of stout should taste like nothing less than heavy wheat bread soaked in coffee, not a flat Miller High Life. What else can one expect from an establishment that caters to a demographic that thinks there's nothing more hardcore than sipping coconut rum in the middle of a history lecture?
Despite the contrary reputation, college is the worst time in one's life to get proper tight. As pissed off as I was to have spent my St. Patrick's Day paying through the nose for legally questionable suds, I've got it easy. The poor kids who live in that part of town have to take a bus just to get a decent drink. I can walk fifty feet out my front door or just open up a cabinet in my kitchen. Hang in there, collegiate lushes. There is a light and it doesn't go out until 2:00 AM.