My birthday was yesterday. My deadline isn’t on Friday, so I can’t talk about it. So let’s talk about my 21st.The short version of the story is that I went out for a week solid. I can’t quite remember how long, now that I’m 22 and old. I do know the contents of my pockets afterwards though.
Three phone numbers of girls on match-books I think most of the matchbooks were from the Zephyr. Two phone numbers of girls on slips of paper clearly ripped from the Free Times. Another phone number of some guy, I guess from the bar, and I still can’t figure out who it is. A spent bullet shell from some gun not sure which caliber. Two hundred dollars less in my pocket. Oh, and two poems written for me, I think.
There was also a scattering of poems and short stories that I myself wrote in a state of euphoria during that week. Most of them were misspelled and badly written. I won’t regale you with those at this time. You all need to be a lot more intoxicated to understand them.
Back to my birthday. I’m a big believer that everyone’s birthday needs to be a holiday. If we go on the assumption that everyone is six people away from knowing everyone on the planet, most people should have celebrated my birthday. Conversely, you should be going out and having fun for birthdays when you have no idea who that actual celebrant is.
A great idea that we should always have something to celebrate. Recently we all did, or most of you who are reading this did anyhow spring break.
I went out to Las Vegas. I found out a couple things. The first thing was that the spring fashion for girls apparently is the exposure of breasts. I have no qualms with this, but also do not condone this exposure (I know too many girls who are like sisters, and I don’t want you perverts seeing them). Unfortunately, I also found out the “in” fashion for partying college students is to act drunk and become assholes.
That last bit bothers me. I work at a bar, where a decent amount of people find a way to get inebriated on a regular basis. I would like to think, however, that the people I know would retain some amount of maturity while at their local pubs.
I researched this idea since I’ve been back in town. I found out I’m dreaming. As college students, any leeway that we are given will turn into something fairly disgusting. In other words, even my friends find a way to become assholes when they drink.
It dawns on me that party season is fast approaching in Kent. Can we all act like assholes and expect the community to take us seriously as we ask for our rights as mature adults while lying in a puddle of our own vomit?
The simple answer is no. How can we ask to be treated fairly when we can’t be fair to our community and act like upstanding citizens.
What is my point? I started with my probably drunken birthday and ended in a question about our rights as citizens and our insistence on negating them. I guess the point is that we should all have fun in the next month as much as possible with wars and hatred everywhere we look but let’s try to be a little bit responsible, too.
Dave Weis is a student at Kent State Universitty.