My
21st birthday was probably a little out the ordinary, at least compared to those of my friends at the time. As I closely neared
the big two-one, I saw other friends jumping into their new legality with
utter abandon. One friend went bar hopping for 21 shots, and woke up the next morning with the names of all of them written on her arm. I don't think she remembered her birthday very well, but she seemed to have had a good time. I got the impression from other people that taking your friends out to get smashed on their twenty first was something akin to
civic duty. It didn't really affect me, though...I've never had anything alchoholic in my life. I just never wanted to. Not like there was anything preventing me, legal barriers aside. I just never have. But, I don't think it's a big deal though.
I think the whole drinking thing was and is part of the time, and definitely had a lot to do with being in college. As a side tangent, my own twenty first birthday consisted of me taking a long walk up to my favorite coffee shop, and getting a nice large
mocha. My grand master plan was to go
coffee shop hopping, just to say I had, and becuase I thought it would make for an amusing story to tell later. Unfortunately, that single mocha did me and I was
wasted on caffeine. I didn't even make it coffee shop hopping. It was more of a coffee shop hop, so to speak. A great birthday, nonetheless.
*smile*
My humor in the whole refusing/accepting to drink issue is that there's an implicit acceptance of the belief that
alchohol is an fundamental issue that we should all think about. That if we do drink or don't drink, it will have huge
consequences on our life. I mean equally the traditional anti-drinking evangelism as well as the social
pro-drinking evangelism. Why does everyone have to care so much?
It's my birthday and it doesn't matter whether I drink or not.