>>> The Rollercoaster of Drama
By staff writer Simonne Cullen
January 4, 2004
The first day back at school after winter break is just like New Year's Eve: whoever you hookup and wake up with can be justifiably dismissed because it's the first day back. Plus if you have no recollection of the hookup happening, well, then it never really happened.
The days after Christmas are usually spent in a panic. People who haven't made plans for New Year's Eve are flailing around trying to find something spectacular to do at home since most of us are not able to drink our way into 2004 in the safety of our dorm rooms.
New Year's plans are like scoring tickets to a Jimmy Buffet concert. You wouldn't mind visiting Margaritaville as long as there wasn't something going on in Kegville (a.k.a. Frat House Row). No one wants to commit to one event in case a better one comes along. You're renting a hotel room? Sounds fun. I'll probably stop by. Hitting up the bars downtown? Keep your cell phone on, I'll call you. Finally, the morning of December 31st you weed out the invitations and decide on the best one. You make the call to your selected group only to realize that they already wanted you to come too—and as the unwritten rule goes the last one that tags along automatically becomes the designated driver/cab finder.
What do some of us have to look forward to after college? Hopefully great jobs and invitations to prestigious parties and job-related events where sleeping with your secretary is encouraged. But then there are some of us that slip through the cracks of partytown. The Chicago evening news reported what local Chicagoins were doing the eve of 2004, and a recent grad school graduate (who wasn't so fortunate-looking) claimed that her friends couldn't commit to a particular event and that she didn't have definite plans yet. It was painfully obvious to channel five viewers that her friends couldn't commit to a plan because she was not going to be involved theirs. What's worse is that the caption underneath her full name read, “Has No New Year's Eve Plans.” The only description that could have been worse would have said, “Will Consume An Entire Honey Baked Ham Before The Countdown.”
That last comment was mean, but it's true. Single girls only want to take their hot girlfriends out with them on New Year's Eve. Not only does this increase their odds for rounds and rounds of free drinks, but it also enlarges their chances of scoring with a group of single guys. After all, from what I understand this is the one night in the whole year the wingman gets off.
Girls are always flailing around on a manhunt for the perfect kissing partner at midnight. The constant viewing of Meg Ryan's romantic comedies bored into us since birth have caused the majority of scantily clad females to believe that this is the ideal romantic moment. But in reality by the time midnight comes around anyone in khakis still standing is fair game. I've seen some girls just reach out to grab the first thing in a crew cut they laid their wasted eyes on. Just destroy any photogenic evidence of that night and you'll make it through the new year not being known as the girl who made out with the back hair fatty in the wife beater behind the bushes.
Speaking of situations to avoid, a lot of girls can't hold their liquor for more than a couple of hours before it comes back up the way it went down: fast and with the same strong taste. And since no one wants to be the girl puking or holding back the hair of the pukee, my friends at home came up with a solution. A couple of years ago when I was a freshman at a New Year's party I watched my designated driver hold two cups in her hand the entire night. One held her Pepsi, the other held puke. My friends and I may be belligerent drunks, but because we're also polite, we found ourselves a dark corner at the house party and vomited quietly in the spare cup. Sounds gross, but we figured it's rude to throw up on someone's carpeting when you could leave several red plastic cups lined up neatly on their kitchen counter instead.
Freshman year if you're not going back to school to hit up the bars with your friends for the night, chances are you were rounding up the whole high school crowd trying to figure out if there were enough fake ID's between the five of you to pull passbacks at a bar. If you do make it into the bars downtown you'll realize something right away. You're at best an upperclassmen at a nice university. The other women, and even underage undergrads that snuck in the bar are attracted to the grad school crowd. You're fresh out of high, you're ID may claim you're 21, but your American Eagle clothes declares you're not.
Realizing that the potential petting zoo of twenty-something women is out of your reach, you use one of your fake ID's to buy a couple of cases and get sloshed in your garage. Again, bravo. Watch where you set down and pick up your drinks. Beer and puke tend to smell and weigh the same.