Cheers!

The 1:30 chime Saturday morning found me in an unusual place: McGurk's Beer Garten in downtown St. Louis. I was in town to help celebrate the 25th birthday of my best friend, Luis. I was the only one in our group who didn't drink, which was convenient because by last call they were in dire need of a designated driver. Despite my dislike of the overwhelming smell of beer and my personal desire* to abstain from alcohol and the 2.5 hour drive home facing me, I actually had a good time.

Some thoughts:

• A good friend (not party to the birthday shenanigans) tells me that you are your true self when you are drunk. My friends are pretty fun drunks and to a person all slurringly professed their love for me (think, "I love you, man" from the old commercials). I guess in a weird way watching them down Jägerbombs was affirming.
• Before the evening festivities, I watched Luis and his law school intramural softball team play a double header in Forrest Park. Leave it to ingenious law students to turn softball into a drinking game (every time someone throws a ball, catches a ball and/or hits a ball, take a drink). Watching semi-drunk people trying to be athletic is a hoot.
• Don't have your wedding reception at a bar. Even though McGurk's is a comparatively classy joint, just don't do. There's way too high a chance one of your bridesmaids will throw up on your wedding dress.
• I was pleasantly surprised at how seriously most people there took drunk driving. It was obviously that about every fifth or so person was sober and A) was either looking to hook up with an uninhibited blonde or B) was that night's designated driver. I guess I just assume most people left the bar drunk, started up the car and just got lucky when they ended up at home without a death count. That's not to say the four or five cops circling the block didn't have any thing to do early that morning.
• I had a very interesting theological debate on church polity with one of those sober drivers who was also there to shuttle people celebrating with Luis (if you want to get specific, he is the boyfriend of Luis' girlfriend's roommate... which makes us absolutely nothing). He is the son of a pastor at a very large Assembly of God church in Springfield so we had plenty in common as we each avoided the obvious embarrassment that we had met each other in a bar.
• I can see how beer goggles would be a problem. In the low light, I had a very hard time determining hotness and I was wide awake and sober.

* I do not believe consuming alcohol is a sin, as is the perception of many of my denomination. That said, I don't see how it can lead to any good** so I avoid consuming it (that, and it's pricey). However, I do believe there is very strong biblical condemnation of getting drunk. I of course realize that by being complicit in my friends' behavior, I am exposing myself as a hypocrite. I assuage my guilty conscience by telling myself it's better than a group of inebriated law students getting first hand experience on how to deal with DUIs.

** OK, so there is SOME good that comes from alcohol.