Prohibition Here We Come

Regular readers of this column know me to be neither rash nor impulsive. So when I say that we need to bring back the eighteenth amendment (or whatever it was) and once again prohibit the sale of alcohol to minors in this country, you know that I've given the shit some serious thought.

Plain and simple, something has to be done about these slack-ass teenagers who drink until all hours of the night and then pass out on my doorstep. They buy lousy booze and almost always finish the bottle, and half the time they get into fights with my friends who have also passed out drunk in the doorway. And I don't think I need to tell you, commune reader, that when you wake up at the crack of eleven with a hangover the size of Elvis Presley's sweaty liver and shit all the way up the back of your shirt, the last thing in the world you want to see is Regis Philbin French-kissing a sheep. Egads, right?

But after that, the second-to-last things you want to see are a couple of fifteen year-olds arguing about who would win in a fight between Korn and the Doors. Because even though you know the answer is obviously the Doors, those dumbass kids don't listen to reason and they don't realize that Ray Manzarek knew judo. But that's their own problem and hopefully for them they'll never get caught talking smack during a book signing for Light My Fire at Borders or something and have to learn the hard, ass-flattening oriental smackdown way.

Now don't get all carried away popping words in my mouth that I didn't cough up first myself, I'm not saying I want a return to the rum-running, big-fat-gangster days of the twenties. From what I've heard those guys were serious assholes who would kill a man for farting out an open window. Or something, they had some kind of bizarre code of ethics that nobody understood. Bottom line is people got tommy-gunned and baseball-batted left and right and it was just generally an ugly scene all around.

Nobody today needs that, especially not over a couple of fuzzy-faced high school geeks getting cranked on a case of expired Zimas. But can't we do something about all of these kids riding their bikes around with a case of beer balanced on the handlebars? That's got to be some kind of public-safety hazard or at least bad for Budweiser's image. Whatever happened to teenagers sniffing glue or whiteout or huffing furniture polish, anyway? Since when is that not good enough for them? Now we've got to put up with all of these twist-n-win contests for Britney Spears tickets printed on bottle caps of Red Dog, not to mention having to wade through rack after rack of different packs of Pokemon cigarettes to find some Marlboros. That's some serious bullshit and we're fresh out of shinola.

Aren't teenagers supposed to be out cramming for their SATs or getting knocked up or something? Alcohol should be reserved for adults, or at least all of the good stuff. If they want to sell their overstock of Lucky Duck Ale or Sgt. Zippertongue's to kids who are too dumb to know better then that's their business, I guess. But good alcohol should be reserved for adults who know how to drink responsibly, and how to line up your thumbs on the steering wheel with the lane markings so you don't drive into a ditch or a condo. The last time I checked they don't teach that shit in Driver's Ed, and kids have to drive into a few IHOPs in the dead of night or take out a Taco Bell Drive-Thru before they figure that trick out and make the transition into responsible adult drinker-drivers.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the rights of kids and all of that happy-assed bullshit myself, and it's not like I want mandatory explosive tracking collars like in that Schwarzenegger movie. Nobody under the age of 40 wants that. Though that would make going to the mall more fun, especially if by some fuck-up they ran on the same frequency as those car door keychain clickers. Damn! But the simple truth of the matter is that there are just some experiences that come with age that can't be bypassed. Rites of passage like backing your car at fifty miles an hour through a carwash at two in the morning because your buddy didn't believe you'd do it, and then you realize he was passed out so you have to smack him awake and do it again. Experiences like that build character, and character should be rewarded with the right to drink and discount rates on auto-body repair.

So, before we're all reduced to drinking our beer from a little foil pouch with a straw, let's take a minute and write to our Senators, demanding that they reinstate the eighteenth amendment. Or whatever it was. Bricks out.

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