99 Bottles of Beer and Four Types of Drunks to Watch Out For

With Gasparilla coming up this weekend, we get to see another side of UT students: the “drunk self.” There are a few categories of “drunk” and I can help you learn to recognize these groups and try to avoid falling into one of these categories.

First off, there’s one group that you can never miss (because they won’t let you) which I call “the stuntmen.” These are the people who once they hit a certain level of intoxication realize, “Wait, why am I not doing something awesome right now!?” They quickly become the center of attention by announcing their going to do “something” that proves their awesomeness with some physical stunt or showing how quickly they can drink a large amount of alcohol in a short amount of time.

“Hey! Do you think I can beer bong three beers at once?”

“…Yes.”

“Oh you don’t think I can? Fine I’ll show you! I’ll put down five beers at once!”

“Dude I said yes, I believe you can do it.”

“Fine seven beers it is! AND I’ll do a back flip off the couch after just because you suck!”

You’ll also notice that the “stuntman” group will always be the loudest at the party too because as we all know, louder = cooler.

Another group you’re bound to run into at some point I call “the wise men.” A “wise man” is usually someone you know but not too well, who’s just acting normal and having a good time until they come up and talk to you one on one. They’ll take you by surprise by starting off the conversation with some really deep question or statement which will change the mood very quickly.

“Hey what’s up man?”

“Have you ever thought about why people drink? It seems like people need to drink to forget about what’s going on in their everyday lives and escape to some fantasy world of fun.”

“Uh…okay.”

“I remember freshman year we went to McDonald’s once and I didn’t have enough money to pay for my McNuggets and you paid for them. I remember that man. You’re a good kid. Don’t let anybody tell you any differently, you should know you’re a good person.”

“Thank you?” And the conversation ends there. The “wise man” will go back to whatever they’re doing as if nothing weird just happened and you’re left standing there thinking “What the hell was that?”

Then a group which is usually just specific to the girls would be “the drama queen.” The name basically says it all, the more drunk the girl gets, the more dramatic everything that happens to her becomes. The smallest things become the biggest problems and she feels the need to constantly update her friends on the nothingness which has suddenly taken over her life.

“Jason hasn’t texted me in over an hour! Do you think he’s avoiding me? Seriously, he’s such an asshole I don’t even know why I talk to him. Should I keep talking to him? Why would he not text me back? I told him I was at this house party and I haven’t gotten a response! Do you think he’s with someone else? He just responded! He said ‘ok.’
That’s it? I’m not worth more than an ok? God I hate guys! Is it me? Do I look good today?”

(Friend finally responds) “Yes! You look great!”

“Shut up you bitch! I look terrible!” These outbursts randomly continue throughout the night until she eventually passes out, waking up the next day to forget whatever she was rambling on about the night before.

Then there’s the “Indiana Jones” drunk, and I call them that because every time they start drinking, it seems like later in the night they always want to go on some adventure to get something. Just randomly during the night this person will stop and say, “Dude remember that place Fudruckers? I haven’t been there in like eight years! We need to go tonight, I don’t care.”

“The closest Fudruckers to Tampa is like 45 miles away.”
“Oh man… we better start walking then.” Four hours go by and your now in the middle of nowhere with your drunk friend realizing “Fudruckers probably isn’t open at 3 a.m. anyways.”

One that you would want to avoid would be “the light switch.” These are the people who start off as the nicest person at the beginning of the night who slowly turn into the most obnoxiously mean person in a matter of a few hours and drinks. At the beginning of the night the conversation would start out with, “John! I haven’t seen you since philosophy class last year! How’ve you been man everything good? Well good seeing you, it’s been so long!”

Then a few hours go by and it turns into, “Hey! Kid from my class… What’re you looking at?”

“Nothing”

“Are you calling me nothing?”And at that point anything said can be turned into an insult and any conversation with that person will be uncomfortable for the rest of the night.

There really are so many other unique characters people turn into while under the influence like “the kegulator” aka the guy who stands at the keg for literally hours regulating who gets to drink first and the “remember when” guy who throughout the night only talks about stories of previous parties and crazy nights starting with the phrase, “remember when we…”. So this Gasparilla look out for each one of these categories and be safe during the parade.

John Jacobs can be reached at jjacobs@ut.edu.