How Cell Phones Ruin Everything

1. Cell phones ruin pool parties. Remember the good old days when you could push people into the water at pool parties? Not anymore! Yeah, pushing people who already have their bathing suits on is fine and all, but the real joy is getting three of your friends to hoist up an unsuspecting victim and throw them fully clothed into the water. However these days, everyone has a cell phone in their pocket. So if you try and throw them into the pool, they become a thrashing mess screaming “My cell phone! My cell phone!” Not fun.

2. People aren’t as awesome as you. Yes, yes, I know. You’re awesome. You’re not the problem. It’s the other guy. But to everyone else, you’re the other guy. The guy who has to let his friends know which movie theater he’s in. Or the woman who calls her credit card company on the quiet train.

3. You are always reachable. We all know that the 9 to 5 is long gone. It’s more like 8 to 5, or 9 to 6. But now with cell phones it almost like you’re on duty 24 hours a day! We even put our cell phone numbers on our business cards! Our personal cell phone on our business cards! If you can’t reach me on my work number, I’m either not at work or I’m busy. Don’t call me on my cell phone. I hate to break it to you, but just because I gave you my business card doesn’t mean you’re my number one priority.

4. Text messaging makes you a bad speller. c hw annying dis is? y do ppl talk like dis? What is it about cell phones that makes us talk like why were raised in the wild? “me tarzan. me c jane l8r?” My sister Amanda is a middle school social studies teacher and she says that her students will sometimes forget what they’re doing and use text language in their essays!

5. Cell phones make you an asshole. You may appear to be a reasonable person. But if you have the ability to check your email whenever you want. You will do it. A lot. No matter where you are. No matter how many friends you’re surrounded by. The temptation is just too irresistible. Who cares if your friend is talking to you? The idea of spam building up in your inbox makes you wet yourself.

6. Cell phones make you a paranoid wreck. Yeah, you’ve read the reports that cell phones don’t really give you cancer, so you feel safe keeping it in your pocket. But you’ve also seen the reports saying that drinking coffee is good for you, wait no, its bad for you, oh wait, sorry, its good for you again. These people don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. And every time you get a text message, your leg starts to tingle.

A man is, ultimately, the sum of his accomplishments.

Each culture, of course, has a different idea as to what rates as an accomplishment. Muslims, for example, put a tremendous amount of stock into making a pilgrimage to Mecca, while generations of Frenchmen have taken great pride in not tripping over their discarded rifles while fleeing the Germans.

The subculture of avid drinkers, living as we do by our own set of rules and priorities, has an entirely different idea altogether, to the degree that our notion of a goal worth achieving may well appear bad behavior or even a criminal offense to the parent culture.

I think it a sad sign of the times that, in this age of entrenched nannyism and political correctness, a person is more likely to be judged by what he refrained from doing than what he actually did. It’s no longer important that you climbed the mountain, but rather how many boulders you didn't “accidentally” dislodge and let roll down on the less daring hunkered in the valley below.

I am trying to get down 10 must things that a drunkard should do before he (I emphasize on 'he' cause I have never really seen a female drunkard) dies.

1.) Open and close a bar.
Find one that opens its doors before noon. Stake out a comfortable seat and hunker down. Resist informing the bartender of your tremendous plan, as this will cause him to pour waves of pre-celebratory shots and you won’t survive happy hour. Pacing is everything. Watch the crowds come and go, watch bartenders rise, reign and fade while you remain like a Methuselah. From that day forward, within the walls of that bar at least, your name will be legend.

2.) Drink a fifth of hard liquor, by yourself, in one day.
For some this is a typical evening, the rest will have to try harder. Unplug the phone, don’t answer the door and get down with your bad self. Stock up on ice, gather mixers if you need them, crack the seal and, inch by inch, take that proud bottle down. Take your own sweet time. Near the bottom you will discover a rich inner landscape you thought a barren desert. Explore it.

3.) Dance like a fool in front of a large hooting crowd.
Cast aside your fear of public opinion, march to the center of the room’s attention and boogie down. You don’t need a partner, you don’t even need music, do a happy jig to the beat of your own drum. Of course, it helps to be really really drunk.

4.) Buy a crowded bar a round.
For no reason at all. Jump up on a barstool and shout it loud: “A round for the house! On me!” Make sure you have a good toast ready, because, for once, they’ll all be listening.

5.) Extravagantly overtip a bartender.
The next time a bartender is especially kind or proficient, lay a massive tip on her. I mean, massive. You must be relatively sober or they’ll discount the act as drunken foolishness. Say something smooth like, “You’re the best of your kind,” drop the bomb, and—this is important—walk out of the bar without another word. With this single act of unexpected generosity, you will restore a bartender’s faith in humanity and give your own self-image a healthy boost.

6.) Walk up to an attractive stranger way out of your league and buy her a drink.
You always wanted to do it. You’ve enviously watched your smooth friends do it. Now it’s your turn. The fear is nowhere proportionate to the risk to your ego (she’s out of your league, remember?), yet it still requires a certain amount of courage. It’s akin to sticking your hand down into the garbage disposal. The thing isn’t going to turn on by itself, but still...

7.) Get carried home by your drinking buddies.
In the company of friends you can trust, get fantastically loaded to the point you cannot stand, nevermind walk. Let them brace you from both sides and carry you homeward. Sing like an Irish uncle. Swear love and fealty to your human crutches. These are the bonds that never break.

8.) Get drunk with your father.
Getting loaded with the man who brought you into this world is one of the most deeply mystical experiences a human being can manage. If you can’t get your father to commit, find an elder you respect.

9.) Try at least one hundred different drinks.
Too often we drunks get trapped in a rut, forgetting there is a wide and golden world of forgotten cocktails, strangely-hued beers, mysterious liquors and wines from places we cannot pronounce. Explore the world from your barstool. One need only thumb through a bartender’s guide to realize how wide that world is. And when you return to your rut, and you probably will, you’ll appreciate just how good home can be after months on the road.

10.) Juice on the job.
You will never comprehend just how pleasurable the workaday grind can be until you bring your old chum alcohol along. You don’t have to get boss-punching drunk, just sneak enough to loosen up that tight harness. It’ll make you wish you worked for a drinking magazine.