I live in a college town. There's a tradition here that the weekend before the one when the students leave for Spring Break is a party weekend. They call it Fake Patty's Day (please don't come at me that it should be "Paddy's" instead of "Patty's" - I know they are spelling it wrong).

It's this weekend.

It used to be an official event that they sold wristbands for and roped off the streets where all the college bars are. People even came in from out of town to get their drink on. That was our short-lived claim to fame - destination drinking.

I think it's calmed down since then. It's still noisy and there are a lot of cars, but I don't think they are charging admission or anything.

Folks seem to be having a good time. The neighborhood is loud. There are cars parked on my street that I don't recognize. Lotta folks in green shirts. Have fun! Blow off some steam!

But I worry about some of these kids. They are so young and it's so easy to make a bad call. Every year I remember some of the things that happened previously. A friend's mother went out to go to church on Sunday after FPD and when she started her pickup, someone who was sleeping in the back of the pickup sat up. They were both very surprised. Or the guy who came to my house after the bars closed, fully convinced that it was his friend's address and that his friend was being a jerk by refusing to let him come in. No, my dude, this is not the house you're looking for.

And there are more sirens than usual, which makes me sad. Usually it's car accidents. How many years have we heard "Don't drink and drive" and there are still people who think they can do it.

Here's hoping everyone makes it out relatively unscathed.

@AngelaPreston TBH if someone sat up startled in the back of my pickup truck, I would probably pee myself laughing. If not in the moment, then certainly in the retelling of it later.

@anne Right? It's funny now but she was pretty startled.

@AngelaPreston But on a more serious note, I generally dislike drunken boozy energy/behaviors. People inebriated on psychedelics are much kinder, funnier, and considerate.

@anne Yeah. I don't begrudge anyone a good time, but it seems like this particular kind of good time comes with a side order of poor decisions (that sometimes spill over to folks who were just minding their own business). People get rowdy and impulsive and the combination makes me nervous.

@AngelaPreston Maybe this will sound judgemental (it’s not meant to be), but I just don’t understand the amount of chaos caused by alcohol. I don’t drink. I have never had a drink that I know of (unless it was accidentally mixed with food or something that I didn’t know about).

So I’m probably not the right person to understand the situation. And yet, I constantly am surprised by how much people seem to love drinking and yet can’t seem to know when they’ve had enough. But as I said, I’m probably not the right person to understand this …

@f It's not my go-to for fun, so I find it a little mystifying that so many people seem to feel like they cannot have fun unless drinking is included. I figure I'm like those people who don't enjoy cilantro. No matter what they do, it tastes like soap. For me, alcohol just isn't that much fun. But it obviously is for a bunch of people, so I have learned to find things I can drink that taste good to me but don't make me fall asleep or get really goofy.