Despite our crowd's consistent demonstrations of hearty appetites backed by impressive quaffing, we were not immune to bad party fouls, like any other high-aiming social group. We were the kind of kids who'd try and make the worst combinations of lunchroom leftovers we could think of, daring kids to eat it for, like, a quarter or fifty cents, which immediately knocked out the rich Jewish kids with orthopedist/dentist dads. They didn't need the change as badly as we did. White milk in a carton was $.15, and my mom didn't give anyone anything extra. Ever. If we wanted some chips to go with our bologna sandwiches or maybe a carton of chocolate milk for $.30/.35 (both junk food items in my household), we had to earn it, which we did by creating insane concoctions we giggled profusely over.
Drinks were fodder, too, because you could make gross-out combos in the obligatory thermos that came with every lunchbox back then. Do people even use those anymore? I'm not sure, but like our clothes and sneakers, a new lunchbox that wasn't a knock-off or a hand-me-down from your less-than-cool older sibling was fresh gear to sport around, and that meant something to us. Like a weird Midwestern religious cult that forbids gifts, presents, and celebrations like the booze that will surely cause them to snap out and kill someone, we were strictly limited in our options, which forced us to get creative, so we did.
Peas mixed with mashed potatoes and something sweet was a solid combo, but over the years, as our stomachs grew stronger, so did the thrills and angst accompanying cafeteria dares. After awhile, like, say, in junior high school, we had jobs for fast food and extra things like a novelty eraser that had meant so much to us in grade school. So, too, did our appetites grow in high school and college. "Mixology" was considered an unspoken minor alongside rolling joints and tobacco in rolling papers, which is kind of like baking with really thin puff pastry in cooking school for the first time: one tear and you're out of the game, unless you become adept at fixing the hole that could render a joint unsmokeable—or a pastry edible—making you the target of jeers for the rest of what could be a very long night.
Certain drink categories quickly became defined to us as a group as utterly non-potable and undesirable for long-term partying, meaning the wrong combo could take you out of the scene and into the bathroom for the entire night, missing out on the kind of crucial action that always takes place at a great party with slammin' music and beautiful people. It hurt, you know? As working class kids, we didn't have a lot of time for recreation, and for us to blow a rare opportunity for fun to remain behind closed doors while recovering from one of the worst hangovers of your life meant you fucked up somewhere, so you'd better fix it for the next time. We had the added bonus of hearing all of our friends make fun of us in the very next room, or prank us hard while we were down for the count, and these were kids from rough homes: they could turn vicious and mean with too much booze and pot.
You didn't want to be "down for the count", like a prizefighter in the last round of a title fight who needs just a few precious seconds to make it to the end of a fight, in order to earn out from the bout, for all that hard work and dedication. It meant that much to us at school, and we really couldn't afford to blow it. There were no magical "Plan B" pills for us to take, back then. Every fuck-up we made could hurt us badly and take us "out of the running" for life, forever, like "Crackhead Jen" who got busted by "Pubic Safety" (public safety): a ragtag bunch of fat locals who hated us/needed us for a living. She got caught by them for over-drinking between dorms, and then was sent back to Ireland by her parents for awhile, to cool her heels. I finally got Karen back to our room, after they'd been pounding cheap fruit punch powder mix with grain alcohol that our friends bought for us in Pennsylvania.
As part of the prized "heavyweight" class of drinker from solid German/Irish/Italian working class New York roots, Karen could pull it in for adults and parents like I could, but Meg and her roommate Jen were from the quieter town of Mamaroneck in Westchester that left them lacking in their party-training, though Meg proved heartier than little Jen, who'd completely lose her shit after a few drinks. It was weird, because they're both solid Micks, but, with her cheerleader crew, Meg had sampled the darker world of blotter acid trips gone bad in the 'burbs, which actually left her primed and ready for a serious party experience like O-town. This shit wan't no joke to play with, yo. Kids snapped out and went down all the time around us, sometimes waiting it out at a local community college while living back at home with their parents for what could be a few crucial years in our development. We didn't have time for interruptions like that, esses.
And so, like grain alcohol with powdered fruit drink mix, Tequilla (or "Ta-Kill-Ya", as we renamed it back then) was "loco" to us, man, as were the rest of the mescal group of drinks from south of the border. We'd drank the bottles to the bottom to eat the worm in front of each other, and that's exactly where it went all wrong for us: at the bottom of a bottle of seriously strong booze. We became the kind of crowd who could smoke and drink all night to exhaustion, braced for the deathly-cold walk home by a strict one-shot rule of whiskey at the end of the night, pounded to the same "Smiths" song that signaled it was closing time at the bar to us, cranked to an ear-splitting level. It was time to go home, and no matter how hard the booze hit you in the warmth of a cozy pub, the freezing bitch-slap of our mountain air always (ALWAYS) sobered us up enough to make it home problem-free. It pays to know just who the fuck you are at the end of a night out, especially around a bunch of roughneck New York kids. Take care with it.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everclear_(alcohol)
