...Take One Down, Pass it Around, 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall...

Saturday night I went to McKinley’s pub for their Halloween party. I dressed as Marge Simpson, and made my costume myself. I have pictures on my digital camera, but do not have a way to get them off the camera so I can show you all. We packed our card reader when we packed up the house to get it ready to sell, so I need to figure out how to get the pictures off. I think the Walgreens on the corner has some system that will help me out with that, or I’ll send the card with Todd to work tomorrow, and maybe he’ll have something there that can help me out. I can’t wait to show you the costume that won me second prize at the bar. (Though the jokers who won first didn’t really have costumes. He was wearing a wife beater, suspenders and a hat, she was wearing a low cut top, a short skirt. I asked them what they were supposed to be and they said that they were dressed like 1930’s people. I don’t think I’ve seen pictures of anyone dressed as Britney in the 1930’s. Yeah, I was robbed. Robbed!!)

While I was at the bar I made a new friend and we hung out all night watching the game and talking about life, relationships, marriage, kids, etc. He’s in our circle of friends but I’ve never spent an entire evening talking to him before, and it was so much fun.

We were talking about past drinking experiences, and I told him about the time when I was 15 and I got busted for drinking. I didn’t drink during high school, only this one time. I was an athlete and I was on the whole my-body-is-my-temple thing. My brothers and sisters drank in high school, and I remember seeing them come home after parties and sneaking to their rooms so my parents wouldn’t notice. I never got drunk in high school, and think I was a pretty good kid--other than the random acts of petty vandalism I committed.

This one time I drank in high school was with my boyfriend, Karl. Karl had a few friends named Charlie and Brian, and the 4 of us used to hang out often. One night Charlie had scored a bottle of vodka and we all decided we’d go into the woods to drink it. I grew up in a small town in Connecticut located between Hartford, CT and Springfield, MA. It was common for teens to go out into the woods or into the tobacco fields to party.

On that Saturday night Charlie told his parents we were going to Brian’s. I told my parents we were going to Charlie’s. Brian told his dad we were going to Charlie’s, and Karl told his parents we were going bowling. Instead Charlie drove us to a secluded spot in the woods he knew, and the boys lit a campfire. We mixed the vodka with some juice, and I think I had maybe a cup and a half, and then Karl and I just hung out by the fire. Charlie barely had any because he was driving, and Brian had the most and was trashed. We left the spot in the woods and drove around town before I had to be home for my 10 o’clock curfew. The boys dropped me off, and Brian was out of his gourd by then.

Fast forward to Sunday night, the phone rang and it was Brian’s dad asking for my mom. I called out to Mom, and waited for her to pick up the phone. Before I got the chance to hang up, I heard Brian’s dad ask my mom if I hung up. She said that she thought I did, so at that point it would have been too obvious if I hung up. I stayed on the line and listened to Brian's dad tell Mom all about our wild Saturday night. Apparently when he got home from being away for the weekend Brian was still sick from Saturday night. He was about to take Brian to the emergency room because he was afraid that Brian had food poisoning. It was at that point that Brian confessed about the night before. Brian’s dad felt it was his duty to call my parents, Karl’s parents and Charlie’s parents to fill them in.

I can’t remember how I was ever punished for that. My parents weren’t big on grounding as a punishment because I think that they were too busy to keep track of what 5 children were grounded for at any given moment. The part of the punishment I do remember was having to talk about why I went into the woods with 3 boys and a bottle of vodka. I think that they were more concerned about me being in a secluded spot with 3 boys and alcohol and them getting me drunk and having their way with me. But they were my friends, and they were all skinny cross-country runners. I could have taken them.

But how do you answer that question as a 15 year old? “Why did you go into the woods and drink with 3 boys?” I think I answered the question by asking my parents why they drank, and they told me that wasn’t the point. They were old enough, and I wasn’t. They persisted with the why question, and I didn’t really have an answer. “For fun” wasn’t a good enough answer either, because they pointed out that there are a zillion things that we could have done for fun.

After that night, drinking in high school didn’t interest me too much. I guess I didn’t really see the point, and I wanted to be healthier because I loved to play sports. I didn’t have another drink until I was 20 and in college. Charlie, Brian and Karl would still drink on occasion, and I passed and stuck with something non-alcoholic.

So, now I open up the floor to my commenters. Tell me about the first time you went out drinking.