I get sick of the hype about beer on today's college campus. Why, pray tell, would one even touch the foul stuff? Besides the fact that alcohol is addictive and kills brain cells, the stuff just plain reeks. One may wonder why the typical college student is so hell-bent on getting beer. Perhaps, you'll indulge me in explaining the frenzy for beer.
Look at your typical beer commercial and tell me what you see — notice all the hot babes in two-piece bathing suits and the studly, chiseled men in their skivvies? I can imagine that Joe College thinks, "Hey, if I go and booze it up, I'll be a stallion like these guys in the commercials and land all the babes." This I find to be most interesting because look at your typical college student who tanks up regularly. Does he look like a chiseled studmuffin? I don't think so. I think a couch potato with a beer gut more aptly describes the typical college drinker.
"Why, then," you ask, "do college students drink if alcohol gives them fat beer guts?" Maybe it's because drinking beer is cool. "Beer" and "cool" go together like peanut butter and jelly. Think about this for a moment. It's "cool" to go over to Joe's and get wasted. It's "bad" to throw keg parties. It's "groovy" to walk into a store and slap a six-pack on the counter like you're all big and bad. Hey, I'm on a roll here.
Let me list some more things that are "cool" about beer and alcohol. It's "cool" to spend your evening puking over balconies. It's "awesome" to get so drunk that you can barely speak and go around acting like a blithering idiot. It's "bad" to slam 21 shots on your 21st birthday and end up in the hospital for alcohol poisoning. It's "cool" to get plastered and then go out and kill someone in a car accident. Oops. Did I write that too boldly? That's right.
Someone is dead or seriously injured, all because you wanted to be "cool". You're in the hospital for alcohol poisoning, all because you wanted to be "bad." Hey, this is all part of the "coolness" in drinking alcohol. Hmmm. Seems to me that the price of being "cool" these days is rising sharply. It used to be that the price of being "cool" was merely taking the time to French-roll your jeans. Now, look at the cost.
"Well," you might say, "I drink beer because I dig the flavor." Hah! Don't make me laugh! I seriously doubt that the first time you popped a Coors, you took a whiff of that fetid, poignant odor arising from within the bottle and thought to yourself, "My, what a delectable aroma. My taste buds are dancing in anticipation of this palatable brew." I'll bet it's more likely that you winced in pain as the stench pierced your nostrils like a dull knife plunging into your flesh. You see, you dig the taste now, only because you've grown accustomed to it, and your senses have been deadened to it.
Going on, maybe you drink because you want to be a rebel. "Mommy and Daddy wouldn't let me drink, so now that I'm on my own, I'm gonna do what I want (which is basically going out and getting wasted)." Now, there's a good reason to go out and get drunk. I'm sure the parents are happy to know that they are paying for you to go out and get plastered. Of course, they thought that they were paying for your education, but my, aren't parents naive these days?
I imagine that quite a few of you out there are going to take offense to this because you go and have a social drink every now and then. "Sure, I drink on occasion, but I've never gotten drunk before."
What do you say to that?" Well, congratulations on getting this far without succumbing to the beast within that demands drunkenness.
So far, you have demonstrated responsibility. Way to go. My question is this: How much longer until you give in to the addictive side of alcohol? Why play with fire? If you know that alcohol is a poison and that it is addictive, why take that chance? You're just as well off playing Russian Roulette (not that I'm advocating it, of course).
As the intelligent reader can see, there are plenty of excuses for people to drink, none of which are any good. If you're out there drinking beer because you think it's "rad," then maybe you need to get a real life and stop worrying about how or when you're going to get that next six-pack.
Sitting around getting toasted or going to keg parties and acting like a fool is hardly "cool." Quite bluntly, drinking alcohol, especially irresponsibly, is not cool, but then again, neither is killing someone because you wanted to be. Think about it, if you have any brain cells left to do so.
david roberts is an aerospace mechanical engineering senior from okmulgee.