On Beirut

No, not the indie pop band. I'm talking about that great drinking game in which any wasted college student can become an instant hero by sinking ping pong balls into red Solo cups.

These past few days have been a glimpse at what high school would have been like if my stars had aligned just a slight bit differently. My best bro from home is moving to Arizona, so his parents left town for a few days this week to go househunting in Phoenix. Despite the fact that the house was immaculate in preparation for its sale this Monday, this was the last opportunity we'd ever have to hang out in this house, so the obvious thing to do was invite a bunch of high school friends over and get really wasted.

Things begin casually on Friday night. It's me and Schaffer (aforementioned friend) hanging out in his house, imbibing everything we can get our hands on from his mom's booze and pill stash: Magic Hat (awesome VT microbrew), André, some white wine and a bunch of Vicodin. Everything is swell, when we get a call from our friend Nesdill--who, by the way, has undergone some personality changes since contracting with the army last year that begin to fully reveal themselves when he's drunk--who says that some 15 friends that we don't know have converged at his house with half an oz. looking for somewhere to smoke. So of course we invite him and his crew over.

About twenty minutes later Nesdill and his crew show up--size as advertised--introduce themselves, and then sit down and start rolling blunts. The house looks like a veritable blunt rolling factory--kids all over the dining room going to work with their Phillies and plastic baggies. In no time, seven immaculate blunts are rolled. The night begins to get hazy at this point. Two girls I knew from high school showed up, these blunts all get smoked in the gazebo, and there becomes a clear separation between the Nesdill crew and my friends. I end up going home around 3 a.m. and pass out for 12 hours.

The next night we plan the same thing, only there's a few different variables. Two of Eric's frat brothers come down to party, along with my other best bro Curtis (who showed up briefly the night before for the blunts), and, of course, Nesdill.

Now, so as to not short-change anyone on the title, I have two brief and ultimatey irrelevant observations re: beirut. One, Solo cups are definitely essential, since were playing with these Target red cups that produced more rim hits than I thought possible. Two, apparently six-cup beirut is an anomoly in college, and I guess ten cups is the game for when high schoolers become big kids. Alas, we're playing some beirut with a mini keg of Heineken and some Beast, getting wasted, more painkillers, etc. Anyway, here's a summary of the highlights of the night.

- Fenton, one of the two frat brothers at the party, passes out on the couch long before anyone else does, contradicting my prior belief that these dudes would drink me under the table.

- The other frat brother, Ben, passes out in a chair outdoors after puking all over it. Again, this is way before anyone else passes out. (Ben, by the way, wakes up in Schaffer's car, apparently having hopped the fence from the backyard to the driveway sometime during the night for a little bit of warmth).

- Nesdill and Eric take a car ride to the local Wawa (the best fucking convinience store, ever, as confirmed by the New York Times Magazine) to satiate some drunk munchies. Eric was fooling around and leaning pretty far out the shotgun door of Nesdill's van, and Nesdill freaks out and hits the breaks, causing Eric to goes flying several feet across the Wawa parking lot. Some kids outside of the Wawa ask him if he's all right, he tells them he's fine, and they go in and get their food without incident. As they leave the Wawa parking lot, Eric (who, even sober, has no gague about what's appropriate, ever) shouts out "faggots" at the same kids who asked him if he was all right. These kids then follow Nesdill and Eric back to Eric's house, but only Nesdill is still in the car when they get there because he's taking his time putting the hood on his jeep. They begin to get belligerent, and Nesdill pulls a bat out of his back seat ready to slam in their windshield. The kids drive away and shout "faggots."

- Nesdill wants to call it on a night on the couch that Fenton's passed out on, so Nesdill goes into drill sargeant mode (which he's done several times already this night, with prominent use of the pejorative "cockholster"), and eventually Fenton gets up. When Fenton gets up he somehow ends up at the fridge, opens it up and lets loose a bona fide beer piss right into the fucking fridge. Curtis and I think it's hilarious, but Nesdill goes absolutely apeshit, reverts into drill sargeant mode, and shames this kid into cleaning it all up. The night ends with Nesdill confiding in me that he's likely an alcoholic since everytime he drinks he needs to black out drunk, and implores to get me to take shots of rum with him at 3:30 a.m.

When we wake up, Eric's cat has gone missing, Nesdill's passed out naked on the couch, Curtis is no longer in the house, Decker's passed out in Schaffer's car, and the irrigation guy knocks on the door demaning $150 for some work he apparently did that morning. Such a fun, fun night, and a great way to say goodbye to the house.