Part 3: Adventures in beer: The High School Years.

High school is one of the worst times that a person can experience. You are starting to be old enough to be somewhat independent, but you are still young enough to be subject to the limitations of parental supervision, oversight by high school teachers, and other authorities whose sole purpose seems (from the hormone-addled brain of a teenager) to be to destroy any sort of fun that might come with the increasing independence. The glory and folly of the teenage years stems from the yearning for freedom, without any sense of personal or social responsibility. I imagine that it must be how it is to be a Republican, or Libertarian. All the liberty and none of the social responsibility!

Anyway, one of the consequences/opportunities of these years is that many teenagers are very creative in finding alcohol and other substances for personal enjoyment. The number of things that were available is actually kind of frightening in retrospect. But, I had certain parameters for what I considered possible.

I’d read enough about the various illegal drugs and their physiological effects to know that several of them were not for me. I was deeply suspicious of anything created in a lab, so no LSD (even if the idea of hallucination was attractive). Also, nothing that would cause permanent damage, particularly to my heart muscle (so, no cocaine). And nothing that was distilled and addictive (no opiates or narcotics). So, of the illegal drugs, this only left plant-based hallucinogens. Yet, I didn’t want to try any of them until I’d graduated from high school (I’d read an article on the effect on brain development, and I am very fond of my brain, such as it is). So, no marijuana or mushrooms until at least college. The one substance I was willing to partake in was alcohol, especially if it came in beer form. It had, after all, stood the test of time.

The first opportunity I had for extralegal drinking came at the beginning of my sophomore year. There was a party down the block from my house and there were a number of people I knew who were going, and several juniors and seniors that I knew by sight, but didn’t know. On the up side, there was beer. On the down side, it was Schafer. What to do. I did have one, but, well, it was Schafer. In a can. So much badness. One was enough, and by being willing to drink, I proved myself cool enough to be allowed to hang out. But, I didn’t need or want any more. Shudder . . .

And then, I was introduced to an interesting tool: the beer bong. For the uninitiated, this is a device that is used for drinking very bad beer very quickly. It is a funnel attached to a piece of flexible tubing. It works in the following way: Step 1) crimp off tubing near the connection to the funnel; Step 2) open and pour a beer (or two) into the funnel; Step 3) place open end of tubing in victim’s mouth, while standing on a chair so as to elevate the beer and funnel above said victim; Step 4) release crimp to allow beer to flow freely down the wide mouthed funnel through the tube, and straight down the victim’s throat. For the slow-throated, this ended in gagging and beer all over the place, and much merriment on the part of the crowd. For the quick throated, it meant imbibing 12-24 oz. of beer in about 4.5 seconds. Luckily, I am of the fast-throated variety. Others were not so fortunate. Much merriment ensued for all concerned (except, of course, for the slow-throated victim).

Going from having limited beer in one’s stomach, to several beers occupying the stomach in virtually no time certainly is an experience that one has to go through to fully appreciate. This was the first time I got truly inebriated and it was the first experience I ever had with the spins. While I encountered the spins later in life, it never was as pronounced.

Somehow I got home and to bed without any obvious suspicion on the part of my parents, but when I got into bed, the room became detached from the floor and began to spin at an ever increasing rate. Yet, no one else in the house seemed to notice the sudden rotation of the entire house while our beds remained stationary. I know that on some level, the Schafer company was to blame.


Beer Bong Schematic