COLUMN: Drinking because we can't

From Siona Listokin's, "Think Different," Fall '99 From Siona Listokin's, "Think Different," Fall '99Being an underage senior makes for some interesting situations. In my quest to break the world record in the "Most Rejections from Smoke's" category, I attempted to visit the establishment on a recent Saturday night and was promptly turned away. In typical self-sacrificing and giving form, I pleaded with my friends to go in, leave me, enjoy themselves, while I went home to watch some black-and-white movies on ResNet. My friends, all wonderful people, accepted this scheme a little too quickly and left me standing on the sidewalk. Umm. Get high with a bunch of preadolescent strangers in a room barely big enough to hold two beds, two computers and two boom boxes? Forget what I told them. What is odd is that freshmen can get a dime bag of marijuana more easily than they can get into local bars. What is disturbing is the way our drinking laws and norms create dysfunctional social habits. Consider. At any point on a weekend evening, the Quad's rooms are filled with students drinking as much as they can, as quickly as they can. The point is to get smashed before they go outside, where the drinks come harder and are not as good. Their next stop is the basement of an off-campus house, where again they drink as much as they can, as quickly as they can. Perhaps they will go to less restrictive bars and restaurants in the vicinity. After they have successfully memorized their friend's older sister's birthday and address, they celebrate with a couple of shots. The result is a whole lot of beer and vodka imbibed in all of 30 minutes. But these same students would not even think of asking for a coffee cocktail at Xando. The Gestapo cashiers there have grande cinnamon sticks shoved way up their s'mores -- they require multiple forms of ID before they will put a little dollop of Kahloa in your drink. Score one for the keepers of the peace. When was the last time anyone under 21 drank a glass of wine with their meal? There is only beer and the hard stuff, because alcohol is only available for the purposes of getting drunk. And of course, when alcohol is too hard to get, John the pot guy will always have some stuff for you in the Quad. It is frustrating that we cannot blame Penn for this reality. We often forget that it is hardly Judy Rodin's fault that the legal drinking age in this country is so high. So we are left shouting -- then drinking -- in the dark. We take part in the quick and nasty process of getting drunk on an American college campus at 18. We go abroad and marvel at the different attitudes toward alcohol in Europe. And we wait for our turn to become happy 21, so that the government will finally consider us mature enough to handle our liquor. It is lonely being a 20-year-old senior in December. None of my peers want to have this conversation with me anymore; suddenly they have a different, older, wiser perspective on the "ludicrous drinking age" debate. But as I watch them join the pretty people at Smoke's, I do not imagine for a moment that they are any more adult than my new freshman friends. Those who have reached the golden age are simply allowed to drink in the open. The rest of us prepare for that eventuality by testing our bodies' limits in dorm rooms and crowded basements. This is the unintended result of a law that is supposed to protect me and teach me to drink responsibly. I cannot wait for this part of my education to be over.