the real world: pasco

No, I don't live with seven strangers while camera crews chronicle my every inebriated mistake (assuming that most decisions made under the influence are, in fact, mistakes), but I feel that I've begun to wade into the pool that is 'real life'.

FYI... It is an icy cold bitch with one hell of an undertow. And it's riddled with slimy seaweed that scares the crap out of you when it slithers around your leg.

The many perks of real life have made me stop and think, and realize that I sincerely miss college.

My memories of joy and splendor in the tundra of the 509 prompted me to recently rearrange my entire schedule, setting aside a Saturday night especially for a Pullman reunion. One night in the birthplace of constant revelry and drunken good times was all it took to comprehend how far I've come since my abrupt departure last spring.

I've become lame, and sober, or as some of my friends would say, "Bitch can't hang." Two beers into the night, I found myself content with watching the lewdness surrounding me rather than joining in. I poured out the warm ale taking up residence in the bottom of my bottle (something that is practically punishable by death) and became a fly on the wall in the world of collegiate merrymaking.

Truth be told, I even refused a thrice offered pull of watermelon vodka. Of course, I hate watermelon, I've struggled with vodka since a camping trip gone awry, and I'm a little bit of a hypochondriac- thereby deathly afraid of catching the swine flu... but I haven't always been so pragmatic. The old me would have thrown caution to the wind, impending illness be damned. I would have choked down the fruit flavored atrocity gladly, if only because it was free and wasn't wearing a Monarch label.

People climbed on cars, falling off them ever-so-gracefully, they were tricked into taking shots of olive oil, they screamed and yelled and fell and most likely vomited. There was ping pong in the yard, and condoms strewn about the ground. Reliving the night, I'm beginning to think that every college movie and show that we all feel is ridiculously over-exaggerated... probably isn't. Crazy shit goes down.

College is one of those places where people sing in the streets and dance on the sidewalks. It's where people get their heads shaved (unbeknownst to them) on the front steps of their friend's house at one in the morning. In college you can heckle a girl on the bus because you don't believe her English accent is real, or run through parking lots screaming about some boy you're obsessed with in your Econ class. Just don't throw your camera in his general direction... drunk you won't be able to figure out how to fix it until the tequila wears off...

People in college can run into Pita Pit, in the middle of the afternoon, holding a small white mouse, demanding shredded cheese. They can also discuss shrooming in a tanning bed, and scream into their cell on campus, "I do not have AIDS!"

In Pullman, Wednesday is Wing Night, and on Tuesdays you used to be able to consume Flat on Your Wileys until you regained consciousness next to your trash can, in your bed, your house key bent in half. You can even wake up in your apartment managers office, having pissed all over her desk, wearing a swim cap with an American flag draped over your body.

God, I miss those days.

Most of the time, I don't feel like a grown up at all. I still live with my parents, I can't stomach the thought of eating tomatoes, and I have a certain affection for Disney movies... but I am 22 years old. I am technically a grown up. I see people my age (and younger) having babies, and getting engaged, and getting married... and it all makes me a little bit sick. Not because it's bad, or gross, or unnatural- but because I am so far away from 'that place' that it's hard to fathom my peers are nearing it. Or taking up residency in it.

Then, while perusing Facebook, I see the many albums of the 'kids' who are enjoying their first year or two out of high school. I think to myself, "Do they do anything other than drink? Good Lord. They're seriously drunk all the time. And why are they posting these pictures? They look hideously wasted. And whore-ish."

Cut to picture #242 of yours truly, and feel free to call me a hypocrite. Or a drunk. Or one hell of a competitor... (did I previously neglect to reminisce about 'The Ladder'?)

WSU was (and I say was with immense fondness and slight sadness) an amazing time. I love the town, and the people, and the energy that surrounded the Palouse. But there's nothing like one night in the breeding ground of debauchery to jostle me (permanently) out of the college mindset.

I'm not 19 anymore. I like drinks that taste good, and I quite enjoy waking up before noon. I have a limited tolerance for idiocy, as I get enough of it at work. I hate screaming over the music, and I shiver at the thought of sticky floors. I've become so incredibly lame.

I'm going to Vegas in a month, a place I'd vowed never to return to after my last four night stint... though I retracted my rather rash claim shortly after boarding the plane. I'm not worried, though. I know I'll be able to hold my own... Vegas can't touch Pullman. Even on the quietest of nights on the Palouse, choruses of "She's not that drunk!" can be heard near and far.