Today’s my 21st birthday, which means that if everything goes well, by the time you read this I’ll be staring down an empty bottle of José Cuervo with my face stuck to the floor of The Dugout.
Ah, 21. It’s the pinnacle of college life, the point at which bartenders who have been laughing at my fake ID for years are suddenly delighted to pour me a beer. It’s also the day I’ve been waiting for since I was eight years old, when my cousin and I first got drunk off Manischewitz wine in the back of the synagogue’s social hall (sorry, Rabbi).
And while I’m thrilled that after 21 years I will finally be legally permitted to drink, I’m also quite amused that anyone thinks I am now suddenly responsible enough to do so. The government expects that after waking up today, I’ll be instilled with a sense of responsibility and maturity that I did not possess the night before. But as I see it, I’m about as mature today as I was when I was 13. Not much has changed since then. Sure I’ve grown some facial hair and held down a few internships, but I still spend a good portion of my time playing video games and thinking about boobies.
So, if I’m mature enough to drink today, then why have I been prohibited from doing so for so long? It was eight years ago today, at my bar mitzvah, that my rabbi first stepped up and pronounced me a man. While it would have been perfectly reasonable for you to have doubted my manliness at that tender young age, it’s equally ridiculous to expect that now, at 21, I’m suddenly ready to become an adult.
Case in point, as a result of my failing to look at a calendar before applying to study abroad, I’ll now be leaving the country just five weeks from now, flying off to London for a semester. So after just a little over a month of drinking legally in this country, I’ll be headed over to England, where I could have been drinking for the last three years. Had I possessed a little adult-minded foresight, I might have planned my trip abroad for a previous semester, so that I could have truly taken advantage of the relaxed drinking laws in the United Kingdom.
Furthermore, I have a strange affection for orange traffic cones when I get drunk, to the point that over the last two-and-a-half years I have amassed a collection large enough to open my own parking garage. As frustrated as I am each day by the continued delays in the construction of the BU West T stop, at night this area becomes a drunken wonderland, full of bright orange pleasures to fulfill my intoxicated cravings.
Surely I can’t be expected to wake up today, throw away my orange cones and start acting like an adult. Frankly, I don’t want to grow up yet.
Today I’m jumping or maybe drunkenly stumbling over the last obstacle between myself and adulthood, but at the same time I’m losing the last forbidden element of my childhood. I’ve already gained the right to drive, see R-rated movies, vote and buy cigarettes. Now that I’m finally allowed to drink, even though I’ve waited for it for so long, I wonder whether I really want to take this next step forward.
I don’t expect the next year to be all that different. I’m sure I’ll spend about the same amount of time getting drunk as I always have, only now I’ll get to drink in places like the BU Pub and The Kells instead of slamming beers in the TEP basement or Warren Towers shower stalls. What really scares me is the year after that, when I’ll be thrust out into the world and expected to do things like get a job, pay bills and know which type of wine goes well with veal. Some days, all the beer, cigarettes and cars in the world can’t compare to the blissful ignorance and freedom of childhood.
Sometimes I think I’d give up all of these privileges, if I could just get back into my Osh Kosh overalls, climb into the sandbox and eat some paste. Yep, it’s all downhill from here. Today I’m more than half way to 40, and 40’s half way to death. Soon I’ll be bald, wrinkly and fat, wishing that I could get back into that Warren shower stall and down a case of Natty Light.
So if you see me out tonight, be nice and buy me a shot, or at least help me pick my head up off the floor. Just let me enjoy this last great birthday, because the next 60 years are going to be rough.
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