Beer Drinking Down One Quarter in Marian Hall

by Michael MERRITT

Who would ever have thought that these words could be written: beer drinking down one quarter in Marian Hall. But the sad truth is that students are not drinking as much as they used to. ; Recently a large moving van drove up to UPEI campus residence

Marian Hall, population forty-two males, and collected all the empty bot- tles. A small army of volunteers was needed, and in record time was able to load the bottles. In total, a meagre 203 dozen beer bottles, or 2,436 individual empties, were collected. An unknown quantity of pint and quart bottles were taken — approximately 85 of each. Most shocking to all who watched the removal was the discovery of 16 wine- cooler bottles; no one claimed respon- sibility for their consumption.

These bottles were removed in the first week of April, and while the quantity removed may at first seem impressive, the last date of removal must be considered. The student-des- ignated leader informed me that the last load of bottles was removed after Super-Bowl Sunday, on February 2nd. In approximately sixty days, 203 dozen bottles of beer were drunk. For a dorm with 42 males in it, many of

them underage, one might expect this to be a lethally high rate of consump- tion, but let us do the math.

2,436 bottles of beer divided by sixty days equals 40.6 bottles a day. Pathetic. There are forty-two guys in Marian, so if every student were to drink one beer a day, that would sur- pass the quantity removed by eighty- four. This assumes that every person in Marian is drinking the same amount every day.

More reasonably, one would assume that the vast majority of drink- ing occurs on Friday and Saturday. Between Super Bowl Sunday and the first week of April there were eight

Fridays and eight Saturdays. 2,436 .

bottles of beer, divided by sixteen, equals 152.25 bottles of beer on an average night of drinking. That num- ber divided by forty-two residents equals 3.625 bottles of beer per person per party night.

This assumes that. every per- son is drinking, but in my opinion 3.625 bottles of beer isn’t going to get you drunk, and I assume that the resi- dents are attempting to get drunk. Some people only take four bottles to get drunk, yet others can drink well in excess of a dozen. I feel 10 is a good

The graph: Beer Drinking at Marian Hall Between 2000 and 2002

The recent removal of beer bottles.

average for a male dorm.

So on an average night of drinking, 152.25 bottles are drunk. That divided by the number to get drunk (10) equals 15.225 students drunk on a night of drinking. That number divided by the total number of students, multiplied by 100, gives the percentage of people drunk on a party- night: 36.25 percent.

Then we run into a problem experienced by many: the difficulty of drinking two nights in a row. The majority probably experience this, around 75 percent, so on the average weekend there are 36.25 percent of students drunk on Friday, then there needs to be substitution of drinkers for Saturday. This results in the majority of students drinking on the weekend.

So 63.4375 percent of the guys (26.65 guys) in Marian Hall are drunk on the weekend. And what does this prove? Well, when the initial facts are looked at it appears as if less then one bottle of beer is drunk per person per day. That would be pathetic, so my math has proven that, in fact, the vast majority of Marian Hallers are getting drunk, which is directly proportional to the dorms “coolness factor.” So, Marian Hall may be cool, solely for

their beer drinking habits.

But more beer could easily be drunk. In sixty days of mid-semester doldrums there are many opportunities to drink, and there should have been much more then 203 dozen beer bot- tles. Every one knows that a dorm is a non-stop party, but these figures make it out to be a mediocre party at best. Not the not-quite-party where every- body ends up playing video games or watching TV, but definitely not the party where strangers show up off the street and you rent a stomach pump and every piece of electronics gets pissed on. According to the math, Marian seems like a normal party.

Granted, a lot of beer probably leaves the building, and a lot would be drunk at bars by the legal crowd. And then there is around ninety litres of hard liquor, which I have not account- ed for. And the sixteen wine-coolers. Why there would be sixteen coolers in a men’s dorm is beyond me, but no one knew where they came from. Assuming that girls drink coolers, then either very few girls have entered the dorm in sixty days, or there is a very effeminate guy in Marian who likes his coolers. Who knows? I’ve never set foot in the building.

TS]