Blame the straws.

All my life, I’ve always heard, “You have no one to blame but yourself.” For the most part, I’ve always believed that.
Not anymore. I blame the straws.

    Years ago, just coming out of my awkward teen years, and coping with borderline obsessive-compulsive traits, I devised a scheme to make sure I didn’t get too drunk.
    I realize now that it never really worked.
    The plan was simple: I keep the straws from the cocktail I just drank, and then add them to the next one served to me. At the end of the night I count the number of straws and can easily figure out, not only how much I’ve had, but also my bar tab. For a while, it was simple-pure-genius. Now it’s crazy-go-nuts.

The first problem:
Not all bars give you the same number of straws. At most places now, it seems like they give two small sipping straws. Other places give one large straw. And in some places, they don’t pay attention and give either, or both. Not exactly scientific method.

Which leads to the second problem:
Not that I’ve ever read it, but I’m sure there’s a law in some dumb physics book that states, “The more straws you have in your drink, the drunker you are going to get.”
    And how.
There have been times where I find myself with a cup full of mismatched straws from all the bars I’ve been to that night (yes, I take my straws with me). I drunkenly try to cram them all in my mouth, so that I can gulp down the rest of my drink in one sip.

    For years, I’ve found myself drinking and someone will say in a fake taken-back tone, “Wow, you sure have a lot of straws.” Usually, I’ll casually semi-explain my straws, or one of my friends will as I busily transplant them into the next glass. Often I’m ridiculed, but other times it comes an a revelation to the curious drinker.
    Ten years later, I find that most of my friends now also transplant their straws.
Heaven help the waitress who comes to our table, only to see a half-dozen glasses filled with a dozen straws each. Many times, our regular cocktail waitresses (and I’m counting that guy at Embers) can do a quick visual at the straws in our empty glasses and determine how fast they want to keep coming back to our table.
    And even though the original aim of my plan has sorta been lost, the spirit of the idea has never died. My friends and I can glance at each other and say, “Why is Julie so tanked? Oh, she has three straws.”
When I see Sean or Hasser with more then eight, I know I’ll never catch up. Once you have more than five, drinks go twice, sometimes three times as fast. I’d need to drink doubles, or get an IV drip to catch up to someone with that many straws.
At that point, the person I know is gone - the straws have taken over.
    On a Friday or Saturday morning, as I nurse my raging hangover, trying to remember how we got so out-of-control, and I’ll decide to empty my pants pockets. In a panic, I’ll be searching for a missing credit card, or a phone number I got, and I’ll discover a pocket full of straws.
    “Damn straws.” I’ll say, half-scolding them.
    With the science and method long since vanished, my straw experiment has transformed into the mark of a devout drinker - badges of shame in a swirling glass of iced rum. And for now, I don’t intend to stop.
    Does this mean that I never intend to grow up? I’m not sure.
But, for now, It still feels right. I can still blame the straws.

/robot