The drinking game - when is it time to call time?

You know the scene. Some leathery old slag with saggy boobs and a tragic line in coarse chat up lines for men half her age is gyrating her baby-ravaged pelvis across a cheap dance-floor. She dances round her handbag, sashaying up to occasional victims, blissfully unaware that the (considerably younger) clientele are sniggering at her from behind their bottles of blue WKD. She resembles something that a bad Glasgow tanning salon threw up at 3 in the morning after a dodgy kebab. She thinks she resembles Rene Rousseau. In this situation, the burning question is – when do you become too old and a bit tragic?

Thursday 21st May 2009
Feeling your age is no bloody joke. As the years slip past, you’re confident that you’re still a ‘bright young thing’. Yeah man, you’re ‘down with the kids’. You can take your booze and, while you’re not exactly a fan, you at least know who Dizzy Rascal is. You can still hold your own.

Then something awful happens.

You go out with a group of friends who all get very drunk (fine so far), you join in with the shot drinking (even though it’s a Sunday night), you laugh at a few drinking stories (drinking is still cool and hilarious because you’re young, right?) and then… the drinking games start.

Classics like “Yee hah” and “21” appear to be happening all around you. You’re getting pulled up for things like pointing and saying the word ‘drink’. You don’t notice someone’s thumb resting on the table and all of a sudden you’re the ‘drinking game joke’. Thing is, I remember playing all these games at University. That’s fine, surely? I was 19. Fuzzy Duck and sticking flaming shots to your forehead is funny when you’re 19. But 30?

Perhaps I’m being paranoid. I mean, we all had a good night… I think. But crazed rugby-shirted boys getting all militant and yelling “imbibe” at you every time you pause for breath is surely a little, well, teenage? While I’m not over the hill yet, I can safely say I am not a teenager. For a start, I no longer throw a jumper over my pyjamas to go out to the pub at midday (a good development by and large I think).

The point is, I do still like to drink profusely. I come from a long line of very well established piss-heads as it happens, and I’m proud of my heritage. But, just for a second, last Sunday evening, I got the distinct impression that I might be too old to be gargling jaegar-bombs and pissing myself at Viz jokes.

Then again…

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