I’m aware of every event that is happening, every conversation that I have and every guy that I dance with. But will I remember it all in the morning?
Beyond the hours spent in classes and meetings, almost all college students cut loose for a night at the bars. The bars, although a different universe from daytime hours, are just as much a part of the college experience.
Past the doors of entrance, a bouncer, usually male, welcomes you, checking IDs. He decides your fate for the rest of the evening.
A little yellow strip of paper gives power and prestige to those who earn one. A wristband: the sign of legality, a threshold of great things, unattainable by many. For a wristband means that you are 21 years old, the legal drinking age, or at least you have access to a license claiming that you are, in fact, old enough to purchase alcohol.
Through a haze of smoke your vision adjusts to reveal the actual bar, where the drinks are created, the dance floor, the center of entertainment and the people, the literal life of the party.
Bartenders are omniscient. Inside their heads lie the recipes for every drink ever made. They make the drinks quickly, without thought. They can measure a shot without a glass. They just know. It’s amazing.
Bartenders have a set of rules that experienced bar-goers can pick up on over time.
Rule 1: Bartenders wait on girls much more quickly than on guys.
Rule 2: Bartenders wait on attractive girls almost instantly.
Rule 3: If a drinker tips the bartender well, then he or she will receive stellar service for the remainder of the evening.
Rule 4: If a drinker does not tip the bartender at all, then he or she will not be greeted by a friendly face from behind the counter.
Away from the bar, the dance floor is full of stumbling people, flailing arms about helplessly in an attempt to achieve something called “dancing.” Girls, wide-eyed with smiles as broad as their chins, feel the effects of intoxication, both by alcohol and by life. It can be unreal, exciting and even devastating. There is always drama.
Whether personal radios are tuned into soft rock or country-does not matter. At the bars, everyone is a listener of pop, techno and rap. The common DJ forces all attendees to unite in musical preference. Lyrics such as Soul Decision’s “when I get you all alone, I’m gonna take off all your clothes” penetrate the ears and minds of dancers.
Drinks get spilled. It’s inevitable. Drinks can soil the attire of not only the drinker but also the drinker’s dancing partner and anyone else within spillage range.
To go to the bars, students shed their normal school attire of jeans and khaki pants.
Instead, these girls don short skirts and black pants. Brown belts are replaced by sparkling rhinestones and glittery concoctions used for mere accent to belt loops, as opposed to any function of holding pants in place. Sweaters often seen inside the classroom have been ripped off only to display tight shirts and strappy tank tops.
This transformation from student to bar-goer is sometimes called getting “pimped out” or “hoeing up” or simply wearing “going out” clothes.
Girls flee the dance floor, running to the bathroom constantly from the effects of “breaking the seal” too early in the evening.
The women’s bathrooms are always filled with lines-not only for girls needing to use the facilities, but also for friends of girls who did not wish to venture to the facilities alone. Inside the bathroom, underage kids down beverages brought to them by their “legal” friends.
And of course, there is always one person who had way too much to drink. She is puking. If the establishment is lucky, the sick girl has made it to the bathroom and not just some random corner of the bar. Other girls in the bathroom, surprisingly enough, have more empathy than disgust for the puking girl. You’ve been her before.
These are but mere scenes, images of a bar. You’ve been there before, but do you remember?
Maria Baran is a junior studying communication.
