Pants pants pants stuff pants drinking pants.

I did laundry today. I took my favorite pair of jeans out of the dryer (yes, I dry my jeans... usually this is not a problem) and discovered that I had shrunk them to a ridiculous size. They looked like a 3rd grader's pants. I was very disappointed and things might have been thrown. I tend to get very attached to my pants.

You may be aware of the fact that I am very stupid in the morning and do things that don't make much sense when I am very tired. This morning, in a stupor of tiredness, I put on my shrunken pants.

Some part of my brain is still stuck in the land where I weigh 50 pounds heavier, because my pants fit (I have lost zero pounds since washing these pants). They just don't look like pants that I think would fit me. You'd think I'd have gotten over that by now... nope. My mental image of myself is still me at age 22. This is poor. I am delighted that my pants fit, though. Hooray for pants!


New topic: Underage drinking! You all know that I am very uptight about underage drinking. I do not judge people who drink before they are 21 (seriously, I don't - I did drink in Ireland when I was 20 because the drinking age there is 18... and now I get to say that my first alcoholic beverage was a Guinness down the street from the brewery at a 200 year old pub, which is awesome - but when I got back I abstained until my 21st birthday, which wasn't particularly hard). It was a completely weird and bizarre notion to me that anyone would - it's illegal! I considered it something other people did that I didn't do because I was too uptight. There has been much debate in the United States recently over changing the drinking age to 18 and whether that would make the 18-20 year old age group safer. I'm not sure how I feel about the subject.

Experts agree that binge drinking is rampant and a huge problem on college campuses. They agree that drunk driving in the 18-20 year old age range is a problem. Something none of the articles mention is that a college student (particularly in the upper Midwest, in Wisconsin, where drinking is particularly celebrated) choosing not to drink before she is 21 is generally social suicide. A teetotaler on a college campus has very limited options when it comes to social engagements (despite what many parents may think, going to parties without drinking is not a reasonable or fun option). Where does one make friends in college? Not in class, but at social engagements. I just think it's something worth mentioning, because I felt like I was at a major social disadvantage not drinking in college. It took a long time to find fantastic like-minded friends, and that was a real drag.

One thing that struck me while reading one of the articles I read today on the subject was a police chief in Boulder, Colorado who kept calling the students he ticketed for underage drinking "kids." Is that part of the problem? Do we still think that people aged 18-20 are kids? Kids that who can vote, get married, buy guns, have babies, go to war, and apply for a mortgage? Or did this particular officer just see them that way because he is older than they are?

I'm not sure if we should lower the drinking age or not. I lean toward thinking that a drinking age of 18 would encourage more people to call for help if their underage friends drink too much, instead of letting them pass out in their own puke. Maybe it would not be as exciting if it weren't illegal. What I'm not sure about is whether this would just make the problems start earlier - like at age 13. Do YOU have an opinion on the drinking age debate?