Man vs. Keg

Midrange jumpshot_20098 years ago

As a young adult, one must not only be able to find his limits, but also be able to discern when the time is right to push past them. Whether it’s hitting for the sorority cycle or devising new and inventive ways to remind the pledges that they are subhuman pieces of garbage, the struggle for one’s white whale is capable of bringing out the best in people. I experienced this phenomenon firsthand in my battle with the liquid devil that was an unfinished keg of Busch light.

The night of my Herculean trial began by following the same formula that had guided me through most of my freshman year: house pregame, bars, house postgame. Lather, rinse, repeat. The first two-thirds of the plan went off without a hitch, and by the time last call rolled around, a semi-coherent horde with the combined IQ and linguistic prowess of Groot stumbled back to the house. It was then that a few of my brothers and I realized that one of the pregame kegs hadn’t been finished. In fact, it was still about half full. The postgame progressed, and as alcoholic natural selection took its course within the hour only three brothers and myself remained, standing against a third of a keg and a crippling level of inebriation that would require a transfusion of Charlie Sheen’s tiger blood to recover from.

It was in this state that Johnny, a British brother who had spent a fair share of his 20 years passed out on a pub floor, declared that we were not leaving the house until the keg was tapped. Kyle, our chapter’s president, was immediately in and my pledge brother Timmy was too drunk to do anything but chug beer with a shit-eating grin on his face. That left me as the last remaining holdout, and with a shake of my head I grabbed the keg and motioned for my brothers to hold my legs.

From that point on we drank with a reckless abandon not seen since the day after the 21st amendment repealed the Prohibition. Chugs, bongs, and stands were alternated with seamless perfection, and once we were no longer able to stomach chugging another cup or bonging another beer, we resorted to exclusively doing keg stands so short they make my last excursion between the sheets seem as long as a Lost marathon. It was Ali vs. Frazier of punishing our livers, and by the end we all looked about as good as Ali looks now. But when the hiss of the tap finally signaled that the keg was empty and our quest had been completed, we cheered louder than a 12-year-old at a One Direction concert.

In hindsight, maybe sacrificing our minds and bodies in order to finish a large quantity of cheap bear wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Actually, fuck that. We were like Sisyphus, but instead of having that boulder fall back down the hill, we threw it over the top and flipped Zeus the bird..