There have been many bad ideas in the past, including Reagan's "trickle-down economics," the invention of headaches and teaching David Hasselhoff to sing. These are all pretty terrible, and a close runner-up is the creation of the "drinking progressive."
Now, I'm not one who drinks to blackout. Bad things happen when I do, such as me deciding it would be a great idea to teach Mr. Hasselhoff how to sing. So I usually avoid this type of imbibing. I prefer to keep my drinking to a moderate level, having only enough so that when I lose control of my legs and fall down mountainsides I don't feel any pain.
Yet this drinking temperance is not possible at progressives, which have the unfortunate side effect of getting you really drunk. Who would have thought people would willingly convene and say, "How about tonight we move from room to room, combining tequila, vodka, beer, cranberry juice, bourbon, whipped cream, rum and Bailey's? And, why not, let's throw in antifreeze too." Before college, if somebody had said this to me, I would have been extremely shocked and replied, "Sure," mainly because before college my only drinking and hangover experience was in 10th grade, when my mom gave me whiskey to soften the teething pain.
You're probably saying to yourself, "Chris, you must have recently attended a progressive." You are quite astute. That's why I like you. That and the fact you haven't told anybody about the time I may or may not have hooked up with the Homer statue. And you are correct. I recently attended a progressive.
It was on the Lawn, and the theme was "Lawn Golf." Usually there aren't general themes for progressives. They tend to just be parties where individual rooms have different mixed drinks, with the specific drink arbitrarily chosen by the resident ("I want to have screwdrivers in my room, because I oppose scurvy.")
As the intense sporting name implies, "Lawn Golf" is also a competition. The rules are simple: There are nine holes (rooms), you have a team of two people and the more your team drinks at each room, the fewer points you receive. In the end, the team with the fewest number of points, like in golf, wins. And if you get sick, you are advised to yell "Fore," so others can duck.
We were all given scorecards, on which to record our scores and write comments. This is my team's actual scorecard:
Hole 1: 4 drinks, 1 point. Comments: Milwaukee's Best, aka Beast. For good reason.
Hole 2: 2 drinks, 3 points. Comments: Straws are cool.
Hole 3: 2 drinks, 3 points. Comments: Ewwwwwww, whiskey and bourbon.
Hole 4: 4 drinks, 1 point. Comments: [Unintelligible scribble].
Hole 5-9: Blank, as my teammate and I had ceased to be able to use a pencil.
Of course, nobody tallied up the points and compared results. This is because half of the groups lost their scorecards, and the other half had, for whatever reason, turned their cards into pirate hats.
Although this is often the end result, progressives are fun. It's like having a nine-course meal, except instead of meals it's mixed drinks and instead of a French waiter who knows exactly what wine goes with your duck confit, it's some half-naked guy who tells you Franzia goes with everything.
Progressives are also a good way to taste drinks you hear about in movies but you're too afraid to order, because, while James Bond may like his martini shaked 'n' baked, you don't want to pay $12 to discover the drink reminds you of antifreeze. Progressives, then, allow you to try various drinks for much cheaper so that afterwards you know precisely which drinks to buy at a bar and precisely which ones will prevent your car from freezing.
Whatever the exact reasons for their success, though, progressives are classic college rituals. I will surely attend another one soon, perhaps even a golf-themed one. Except next time I won't bring my golf clubs. They'll probably just be stolen and used as pirate swords again.
Chris's column runs weekly Mondays. He can be reached at shuptrine@cavalierdaily.com.
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