The Labor Party

Senior year has begun. I am living with 4 good friends of mine in (what aside from some prior damage is) a beautiful house. We decided to write a blog to document all the awesomeness that happens here.

After our first week of classes, we had a three-day weekend, and decided to throw a Labor Day party to show our support for the working man. We bought drinks and chips in preparation, and made ice. Ben wanted to use The Joy of Cooking, but I insisted that the latest issue of Esquire had a better recipe for ice. I told some of our friends, beforehand, that I expected most of our guests to show up at 10ish (10:30), but I would prefer if our close friends came at 10:00. Funmi asked “So, I should be there at 9:45ish?” and I said, “Yes. Come at 9:45ish, which is 10.”

As I had hoped, we had a nice intimate gathering at 10:00, before our party got big. We demonstrated that while we enjoy cooking and hosting quiet gatherings, we are also capable of throwing a crazy party. We are domestic yet wild, like a coydog.

Ash Cash mentioned, “Morgan, I hear you’re growing out your facial hair.”

At which point, Re Ray yelled, “No, Morgan, don’t do that! It looks awful!”

I was pretty concerned that the party was already getting out of hand, so I tried to defuse the situation. I pleaded with them “Stop yelling. I didn’t do anything. I just offered to show Meg what 2 days of facial hair growth looks like.

Ash Cash, shocked, asked, “How does she not know what that looks like?”

Seeing that the party was taking a turn for the worse, I put my foot down. “Nobody is to talk about hair for the remainder of the evening!” Surprisingly, that worked pretty well.

A few minutes later, Elias arrived. It was very nice to have all three residents of our sophomore year suite (Toby being the third) reunited for the first time in over a year. I introduced Elias to Mike, who had stayed with me as a prospective student. We learned that Mike, like Elias, had taken a leave of absence last year, due to an illness. Elias was misdiagnosed several times, and Mike was never diagnosed with anything. When we recalled that Toby had also suffered from an illness that was never properly diagnosed, we realized that the one thing all three of them had in common was living with me. Seeing some of my housemates the morning after the party further supported the theory that living with me is hazardous to one’s health.

Kartik talked about The Red Panda, a humor magazine that he and Brian are editing. I asked him if the magazine was censored. He said, “Not very much. What did you have in mind?” I told him a long story about a crazy man I had met, who shared some of his wisdom with me regarding several taboo subjects. Kartik assured me that the story was Red Panda material, and need not be censored.

Scott looked at our ice bucket, and reminded me of the times we drank alcohol out of buckets, which we swore never to do again. Sophomore year, using a recipe Toby had brought back from Thailand, we mixed vodka, Coca Cola and Red Bull in a bucket, and supplied straws, so several people could simultaneously drink out of the bucket. What we learned after a few tries, (This may have been mentioned in the mandatory online alcohol education course we took before freshman year. If not, it should have been.) is that drinking through a straw causes alcohol to bypass one’s taste buds, and travel straight to the liver, leaving the drinker completely unaware of how much he or she is consuming. After Toby, Elias and I had successfully implemented the bucket system at two of our suite parties, Toby, Scott and I tried to use buckets at a ski team party. We learned, the next day that the straw effect, combined with the level of drinking that inherently happens at a ski team party leads to a half day or less of skiing. The buckets kicked us pretty hard that night, and the following morning, we decided to kick the bucket system for good. Jodie, overhearing us, was intrigued by the idea of using straws to consume more alcohol than one otherwise could. We tried to explain to her the danger of entirely removing what little judgment we have while drunk, but she wouldn’t listen. Finally, I was able to drive the point home, by telling her, “You should be making your own bad decisions. Don’t let the alcohol make them for you.”

In the morning, I woke up early to attend the required class for students planning to throw parties. I quickly threw together a greasy breakfast, and went to the class 20 minutes early, expecting to see a long line. The maximum class size was 35 students, and I was afraid there would be at least that many who were in a better position than I was to wake up early in the morning. As it turned out, I was not the only person who had spent the weekend celebrating our return to school.

I was told there would be a quiz, so I took copious notes during the class. It turned out that the quiz was based on what we already knew, rather than what we had learned in the class. The first question was “True or false: The alcohol content in a 12 oz. wine cooler is equivalent to a 12 oz. can of beer.” I got the question wrong, because I don’t know anything about wine coolers. Seeing as how I’m not a girl, and it’s not currently 1989, I don’t seem to meet either of the prerequisites for drinking wine coolers. Apparently, that was true of most people in the class, as it seemed a lot of people got that one wrong. The next question was worded strangely, so I guessed. “True or false: Alcohol is digested in the same way that food is digested.” While I know that both substances are digested, and the process involves many of the same organs, I concluded that there were some important differences between how they affect the body, so I correctly answered false. A few people got that one wrong, so the teacher explained the difference between how the body digests food and alcohol. Among other things, she told us “Because alcoholic beverages are liquids, no mechanical action is required by the teeth for the digestion of alcohol.” And I was worried that the class wouldn’t be informative. I correctly guessed on a later question that the birth control pill does not make it safer to drink, although I’m not sure why I should have been judged on whether or not I knew that.

We learned that in past years, the handout for the class included recipes for non-alcoholic beverages, as an alternative to drinking. The school stopped including those, when it became apparent that people were using those recipes and adding alcohol. The teacher admitted that she had tried that, and the drinks tasted pretty good.

Overall, I think the class was pretty helpful. I’m confident that as awesome as our first party was, armed with this knowledge, our later parties will be even better. We’ll play such crazy drinking games as “Card the freshman” and “Who can finish a beer in under an hour?”