The drinking age is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?

It prohibits people that are under a certain amount of years from taking part in drinking alcoholic beverages. This is based on the logic that these people don’t have the responsibility necessary to handle the intake of malt beverages.

The thing that makes me scratch my head is that the alcohol reduces such responsible individuals to the level of total incompetence. So the reason why people under 21 can’t legally drink is because they don’t need it to reach the end result?

I don’t know what I’m getting at, but the gist of this whole column deals with the drinking age. It divides people into two different groups; minors and legal drinkers, for lack of more creative titles. The minors, although they are not allowed to drink under the law, get the better end of the deal, if you ask me.

I reflect back on my pre-legal days (which wasn’t all that long ago, to be honest) when reaching this decision. Drinking has become almost a chore these days, and that is completely due to my days as a minor.

When you’re a minor and you drink, life takes on such a thrill, doesn’t it? I remember the first time I actually consumed alcohol. I was 15, and over at a friend’s house. I slammed three beers, which was one shy of what the dog consumed while I was there. My friend and I had a sober driver (the host’s mom) drive us up to the high school to watch a basketball game. All I can remember is that my eyes hurt a lot, and I was scared to go home. And I thought I was so cool.

Nights as a minor were spent driving around town, eyes searching the passing cars and the shadowed sidewalks for someone old enough to supply us with beer. Or we would hang out at Kwik Shop and wait for some stranger to come up who was old enough to buy us alcohol. Much better than hanging out at the Youth Center, huh?

It was a frustrating adventure on most occasions. It seemed our legal “friends” felt we were just using them. We underage folk were just trying to make new friends. Back then, I actually believed that.

However, some of the greatest nights in my minor era were the keg parties that were thrown in my hometown. You know, somebody would plop down a keg or two in the middle of a dung-infested pasture, and everybody would get sloppy drunk. Boy, there was nothing like drinking glass after glass of Meister Brau around a raging bonfire and listening to everybody’s life story.

And the night wasn’t complete if the cops didn’t show up to disband the party. You ran for your life, as if the police were to shoot on sight. As you gained party experience, you realized that the cops were usually just there to take the keg and make sure the only people that drove out of there were sober. When you have the option of shooting the breeze with the fuzz or listening to how a drunk Bobbie Sue can’t believe her boyfriend was busted for poaching, you almost have to pray the cops show up.

But it was still really fun, right? Even if it was stupid.

However, once you reach the age of 21, a lot of the fun is gone. For one, the challenge is completely gone. You bring a case of beer up to the counter in the local Casey’s, and there is absolutely nothing to worry about. How boring is that?

Wasn’t it much more fun when you were 19, and you had a 50/50 shot that the old lady behind the counter with the Coke-bottle lenses would think you passed for 21? The risk made the beer taste better; it was like a chaser of sorts.

Now there’s the other side of the buying coin. After graduating into the legal drinker group, you are automatically put on the “potential buyer” list that minors carry around in their pocket. You find that you have more friends than you could possibly fathom making in a lifetime.

Some of the ways minors start a conversation with a potential buyer are funny, if you are patient enough to see the humor. “Uh, so, like, whatcha doin’, man?” was one common line I’ve received. At first, I used to answer with “Not much,” but now, I simply answer the question they are trying to set up.

“No.”

There’s still the good old keggers. The good ol’ days of the pasture parties have become nothing short of embarrassing. The new crowd of minors are now dominating the scene, and you start to feel so … old. And when the cops show up, you still run, but now it’s to avoid a contributing to minors charge.

And then there’s those nights when minors get to go the bars. They are taking over our territory with lines way out to the streets, we older people can’t even get in to have a good pitcher of beer.

I realize these are all superficial woes that I have mentioned. But let’s face it, drinking is here to stay. We might as well try to educate people as soon as possible, so that it will be as fun and safe. And it’s never to late to learn about the effects of alcohol.

After all, it’s not just kids that act irresponsibly with alcohol. A good friend of my family’s was seriously injured during the holiday season in a collision with a drunk driver. The driver was at least three times my age.

A limitation basically spreads ignorance about the subject in question. If we act now, we can teach people the lessons they need to know about alcohol before they learn them the hard way.

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Christopher Clair is a senior in journalism mass communication from Waukon.