Danny Andrews

A drunk is like an apple in two ways: everyone can identify one with ease and they come in a variety of styles. I took my time this last weekend to study the common drunk because of the ample amount of test subjects. I found four main categories of drunks: happy, philosophical, angry and bitter.

The first variety is the happy drunk. You can easily identify these drunks by how they spend their night. Smiling, high-fiving, hugging and telling everyone, “Oh my god! I love you so much!” are dead giveaways. They’re always sure that they’ve seen you somewhere before (hint: it’s usually five minutes ago in the kitchen) and they are always excited to meet someone new.

Second, we have the philosophical drunk. These Socratic soaks are the people who move around the party speaking to anyone that makes eye contact. The philosophical drunk speaks at length about anything. Life, society, friendships, nothing slips their minds. They grant you the pleasure of mind-altering ideas like “What if a chicken was really a duck, right?” or the ever popular “Drive safe,” which they always manage to say between surges of vomit late at night. Some precaution should be taken with them, however, because if you should dismiss one of their intelligent debate prompts, they can quickly become…

An angry drunk. These drunks love two things: yelling and alcohol. They yell at people they think are touching their alcohol, they yell at people to find their alcohol and they yell at people to get them alcohol. Should two angry drunks meet, the yelling will escalate into a fight. Usually one angry drunk is writing checks his or her body can’t cash and is made a fool of by a bigger, badder, angrier drunk. This then creates the worst drunk imaginable.

That is the annoying drunk, the lost souls of the party scene. Why are they here? Who brought them? There are no reasonable answers for these questions. They are usually passers-by who just wanted to party and came in. Or they could have missed their ride six or seven beers ago. No one knows. All that is known is they are bitter, loud and currently residing in party purgatory. The annoying drunk critiques your beer pong skills with no ability to “show you how it’s really done.” The annoying drunk tells stories to no one in particular about people that no one ever met. The annoying drunk’s only mission is to cause suffering, because misery loves company and they are oh so miserable.

In all its forms, the common drunk is an interesting and seldom flattering creature. It allows people to explore the range of human condition from feral animal to enlightened academic. The state of drunkenness is one that allows a man to truly understand himself.

Or at least understand what “one beer too many” is really all about.

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