Editor’s note: This article is a humor column.
My name is Peter Paint Can, though my friends call me Mr. Petester Poker God Painty for short. For the past two decades, I’ve called the top shelf of my fraternity’s liquor cabinet home.
I first came to the University in ‘04 as a brightly-labeled product straight from the Super Save Mart. I had the whole world in front of me. Since then, the years have passed me by, and all I have to show for them are a faded label, a curdled interior and an unsuccessful week-long relationship. She was a bottle of Don Julio and was understandably out of the house quickly. I was last seen in action seven years ago during our body painting mixer with Tri Felt. It has been a lonely life since then.
Fortunately, I’ve learned a lot with the bird's eye view that a top-shelf spot gives you. So that you all don’t lead unhappy lives, I’d like to impart that knowledge. The brothers are finally cleaning out the house after 20 years, and unlike me, you young-ins won’t end up in the trash. So attention, class is in session, and Mr. Petester Poker God Painty is ready to teach.
First things first, keep it simple at the frat bar.
Over the years, I’ve witnessed so many people ask for actual cocktails, and not once have they gotten anything close. The funniest requests among them are the repeated calls for a rum and coke — to this day, I’ve never seen these frat guys buy rum for guests, and the coke they do have is not the kind you mix into drinks. The last girl that asked for a cosmopolitan had a Genessee Light thrown at her head. The next time I saw her, she was incoherently mumbling about wanting a Busch while wearing someone’s shorts as a hat. I assume she made a full recovery.
Secondly, make sure to trip balls on Salvia and shrooms.
Living life locked in a cabinet, drawer, room or observable universe is not something that suits a paint can, much less a person capable of much more. I have no brain to hallucinate with, but you do! So experience an alternate life of five years in the span of five minutes. Develop dissociative psychosis for 10 years! You may even get to live as a tree — lowkey sick. Experience all the possibilities of life to the fullest. But whatever you do while high, don’t try to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. They might not be your size, and that’d probably be uncomfortable.
Also, experiment with all the different combinations.
You are capable of so many great things, and you don’t know the half of it. So go find out! Obviously, industrial paint is the best thing to get faded on, but there’s no end to what can make your world spin. You may even be capable of blacking out on just light beers. Further, indulging in any substance will bring you closer to your fellow man. Whether it's oxys with Moxie, coke with a bloke or dirt with Bert, you’re guaranteed to gain a new friend. The worst-case scenario for a night of debauchery — certainly full of screaming and belligerence — is that you wake up in the morning a slight pony, a little hoarse.
Likewise, don’t worry too much about grades.
I’m sure learning is important, though I have no concept of what schooling is, but testing your tolerance seems like a good enough start. When I overhear these young bottle openers cracking up over their favorite memories, I don’t ever hear them mention “the extensive folk religion catalog in Fiske” or “the forceful fun of physics problem sets.” In short, there are memories to be made outside of books. And if you make the right decisions, you won’t remember many of them the next day. Focus more on your own plot, have some spine and don’t listen to what these teachers, except for me, tell you to do.
Last but not least, you should free me from my incarceration.
I may never see the buzz of action again. But maybe if you find me, I can add some color to your life.
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