The Drinking License

Yesterday we addressed the non-debate swarming around the legal drinking age. As usual, I have a much better way of approaching the question of when people should be allowed to drink.

Age limits are somewhat arbitrary. Not all twenty-one-year-olds are created equal. And what's so special about twenty-one, anyway? Do people magically wake up on the morning of their twenty-first with a suddenly more capable liver? And what's really the difference between eighteen and twenty-one? Has anyone ever met a twenty-one-year-old that's significantly more mature than he or she was at age eighteen? Why am I wasting an entire paragraph on what should probably be a bulleted list?

Yesterday I said I was against lowering the drinking age to eighteen. However, I'm a big advocate of offering a drinking test first available whenever the hell people want to take it. Like a driver's test, but not as easy. Applicants will be tested on:

• Rate of inebriation.
  
• Belligerence levels.
• Beer pong skills.
• Conversation style with random drunken strangers.
• Frequency of swaying, stumbling, teetering, and tottering.
  
• Beer goggle intensity.
• Puke and rally ratio.

Following this intense battery of tests, drinking licenses will be issued with ratings similar to driver's licenses. Like driver's licenses restrict motorists to only certain types of vehicles, drinking licenses will dictate the types and amounts of alcoholic beverages the bearer is legally allowed to order. The breakdown is as follows:

• Class S. S is for sober, stinky, and sad. This is the default.
  Drinks Allowed: O'Doul's. Cutter. Virgin Bloody Marys.
  Shots Allowed: Are you f'ing kidding me? Get it?!?!?! F'ing? Why the heck isn't anyone paying me to write this stuff yet?
• Class A. A is for amateur, asshole, and aren't-you-supposed-to-be-studying. Your generic douche bags and slut rockets who can't handle their liquor.
  Drinks Allowed: Shit light (up to four). Wine coolers (up to five). Captain and coke or Cape Codder (up to three).
  Shots Allowed: Kamikaze. Woo-Woo. Buttery nipple. Although the Cement Mixer is recommended.
• Class W. W is for wine-o. This is a special class of license similar to that of a motorcyclist.
  Drinks Allowed: Wine. Two bottles.
  Shots Allowed: Oh just put the bottle in a bag and go to town. I'll get you a straw if you want.
  
• Class B. B is for bonehead, bitch, and better-get-a-bucket. These people can handle their beer but should never, under any circumstances, be given liquor. To do so would be worse than feeding a mogwai after midnight. Your cute, curious, probably furry friend will immediately transform into an annoying tool shed that breaks shit, starts fight, and oozes all kinds of disgusting fluids.
  Drinks allowed: Beer. Any kind. As much as they want.
  Shots allowed: Irish Carbomb. It's mostly Guinness anyway.
• Class L. L is for lush, liver disease, and let's-go-back-to-my-place. The few. The proud. The ones who can handle their shit.
  Drinks allowed: Anything goes.
  Shots allowed: You don't even want to know.

Wow! As if you needed another reason to someday make me your corrupt mayor, unqualified school superintendent, sketchy governor, womanizing senator, or Director of Homeland Security!