Don't Knock It

When I was at the tender, tender age of 14 and entering high school, I met a wide variety of people. I met some people who had started drinking at young ages like 12 or 13. I never knew of a world that existed like that. When I was that age, I didn't really have a desire to go out and party. 21 isn't too far away, I figured, and I have plenty of time in the rest of my life to get drunk. However, I still always listened to one girl's drunk stories. I thought 14 and 15 were ages too young to go out and drink, but if that's what she wanted to do, then go for it.

Clearly, the idea of waiting until I was 21 didn't pan out. Like the average teenager, I started drinking, but not until my junior year of high school and I met that "bad crowd" parents were so wary that you would fall into in all those Lifetime movies. It was when I started working at Shannondell that I started going to parties and started drinking. Back then, I was a baby. Two shots and I'm giggling like a buffoon. Ever make fun of a "Two Beer Queer"? That was totally me. I never really did anything too outrageous when drunk (if I even was that), and, for the most part, I was responsible. My drinking habits would peak in my freshmen year of college, and now I see myself as somewhat of an experienced drinker. However, I still don't feel the need to drink with every activity nowadays - I'm extremely against drunk driving, my liver needs a break every once and a while, and, most importantly, I don't need a beer in each hand to kick back and have a good time with my friends.

Some people don't really share my point of view on drinking. I knew these two sisters who, in the early days of their years in high school, were so against teen drinking that they would go so far as to judge those who did do it. This isn't an ABC Family original series - teenagers go to parties, and they drink all the time. Besides being illegal, it's not that big of a deal. Once or twice, I would hear them call someone who enjoys drinking out, and try to make them look like an ass for "drinking too much."

Flash forward just a mere couple of years to me doing some Facebook stalking. I stumble onto these sister's pages, and what do I see? Underage drinking. A lot of it. Aaaaaand they're all bifflez with the girls at the school who are poster girls for Pabst and Natty!!

A change of opinion is not the point here, because clearly I changed mine. But to judge and criticize one party only to join them a few years later? Hello Pot? This is Kettle calling. It just has me bugged that their drastic opinion went the completely opposite way to, as it appears, fit in with a crowd.

Sometimes I just lose faith in our generation.