Photo by Matthew Le Blanc

The Investigation

It’s Wednesday night and you know what that means, it’s time to hit the old pub to see exactly how the MSA handles its liquor. Since I don’t drink, I recruited two friends, Jordan and Dave, to tag along in the name of binge journalism. Before reaching The Arnie, we stopped at a friend’s place who Jordan considers a “hardcore partier”. After no answer at the door, we let ourselves in to what looks like a cross between a dark alley and a Payless Shoe Store. Every conceivable style of women’s shoe was scattered amongst dried leaves, newspaper and cooked spaghetti noodles. Clearly pub night is more important than house cleaning. To my credit, I still took my shoes off out of respect when entering, something my socks would eventually pay for.

After a brief visit and several sock stains later, our party was predrunk enough to head over to the school with me as their chaperon. Directly outside the Student Centre where The Arnie is located, security guards were huddled together having a smoke. Without being carded or fondled, we were whisked right through the first checkpoint. The second checkpoint, however, was like crossing the border. You displayed your I.D, declared the contents of your pockets and were free to enter.

The place was practically empty when we first went in, save for the DJ who was mixing several songs together at once to create what sounded like a space shuttle launch. Turns out 10 p.m. was too early, so to be fair we decided to wait a little bit before launching our investigation. Luckily the place provided entertainment as we waited. After witnessing a couple put on a softcore grope show one booth over, a lanky fellow with an unflattering ginger Movember mustache sat down shoulder to shoulder beside me. Completely plastered, he explains that our “bro circle” looked inviting and wanted to be a part of it. After Jordan tried scaring him away, “Gingerstache” throws his hands up into the air and announces, for the record, that he loves vagina. At that point, I prepared myself for what ended up being the funniest event of the evening, which I also didn’t catch on tape. After justifying why he prefers said lady part, he proceeded to go into vivid detail about a sexual encounter that he had an hour before our conversation. All the while, as if we were decade old pals, he kept putting his hand on my shoulder to somehow illustrate this fantasy of his. Concerned for his hygiene, I asked if he at least washed his hands before touching me, which he took slight offense to. After silently sitting in his stupor for the next few minutes, he got up, left his beer can at our table and stumbled off, ending the awkward encounter. I believe this proves that alcohol really brings the best out in people.

After that, we went for our first trip to the bar. We decided to make Jordan the designated purchaser for the evening and pooled our money together (Yes, I paid for some of their drinks). The drink of choice for the evening was the Budweiser Tall Boy, on special for  $3.75 a can. Jordan bought two without any issue and after a few minutes we sent Jordan back up to the same bartender. Dave and Jordan couldn’t drink the beers fast enough. In 30 minutes, Jordan managed to buy seven drinks. That’s 3.3 litres of alcohol for $26.25. If you could somehow chug seven drinks in 30 minutes and keep it down, I suggest you join the circus or Alcoholics Anonymous. For the rest of us, that’s enough to win yourself an all expenses paid trip to the hospital.

To quote, “You know that’s a lot of alcohol you can consume at three dollars a drink.” You said it, Clark.