Everyone has at least a few items they maintain as keepsakes beyond college to remind them of the experience. A piece of a goal post from a tense football game, a textbook from your favorite class, or perhaps, a pair of women’s underwear from a particularly tremendous party. Whatever your keepsake may be, it serves as a reminder of your youth, when things were simpler and responsibility was minimal. A reminder of a time when the best way to settle a dispute between roommates was by an extremely competitive and often exceedingly dangerous drinking game – of which there are hundreds of different types. The most commonly used in my circles, not just for decisions, but to prove general superiority in all things – strength, intelligence, sexual prowess, and most importantly, alcohol tolerance – was beer pong.
It was so important, in fact, that two of my roommates, in the summer of 2006, built a beer pong table that could float on water. The architects, at the time two engineering majors, built what would later become The Drinktanic. A piece of plywood secured to 2x4s with eleven 2-liter bottles of soda filled with air was all it took. It was the unsinkable (we tried) testimony to our ability to adapt our drinking to any environment, as inhospitable as it may be. She set on her maiden voyage the weekend after construction with many, many cases of beer. For the next several years, she would be available to us. When she was not afloat in the pool of our condo – Grantwood Village – she was dry docked in the garage on saw horses, always vigilant for the next drinking game. Always ready to sail on the waters of the Grantwood pool at a moment’s notice. To put it simply I need to paraphrase Nelson Mandela (I’m sure this is what he meant to say):
She was the captain of our drinking, we were the masters of that summer.
She registered hours of Beer Pong, Land Mines, and Circle of Death both dry docked and afloat. It only took twenty-two liters of air to keep many summers of partying alive. My fondest memory of the Drinktanic came one summer day in which a large game of Landmines turned into “King of the Drinktanic”. That day we not only discovered that the Drinktanic was unsinkable, but she could also leave large splinters in our chests. I distinctly remember the following morning. I didn’t just wake up with a severe hangover and a second degree sun burn, I also enjoyed the sensation of having an entire Lowe’s lumber department imbedded in my chest, stomach, and hands.
I, like many others, harbor fond memories of Columbia summers, poolside at Grantwood Village. That’s why, with a heavy heart, I'm passing the message that the Drinktanic has made her final voyage and has been dismantled. It will be used to build shelving in the house of the people that have dry docked it for so long. Some of the people that used her the most. I awoke to this e-mail this morning:
“Drinktanic is ‘sailing into the dry dock’… Aka, she is being dismantled. If anyone would like to come over tonight and hug it, kiss it, whatever you would like, please feel free to do so. I will be having beer during the ceremony, don’t you all worry (and by ceremony I mean a grim reeper moment with a Dewalt saw). At least she is being taken down by a top tool.”
You see, eventually everything matures. Everything grows up, becomes more productive, carries more responsibility. Engineering majors become engineers. Best friends become Groom’s Men. Girlfriends become Wives. College students become college graduates, and graduates become professionals. As we grow and adapt to new lives, so does the Drinktanic. We first built the Drinktanic to “adapt our drinking to any environment,” and she continues to adapt to our environment. Parts of her have become shelving in the house of former roommates. She, like us (most of us, anyway) has matured and adapted to her surroundings. I take solace in the fact that the Drinktanic will never truly leave us, as a friend put so eloquently:
While I'm not quite ready to raise a glass to my youth and my foolishness and wish it farewell. I will raise a glass to the Drinktanic.
To growing up. Cheers.
