Phoebe Zipper

“The football team remains terrible—but sheesh, that was cool.”

The flash of the lights. The crack of the bat. The buzz of the crowd—BACs cookin’ well above .08. The smell of the turf. The taste of victory and second-hand Juul exhaust. The thrill of peeing in Bowdoin’s very own urinal trough.

This week your columnists, in proud journalistic tradition, dispatched to a war zone to bring you news from the front. Like Hunter S. Thompson embedded in Granada during the U.S. invasion, we decided to cover our “boys” as they played Bowdoin’s first ever night football game. Our drinks and our spirits were imbued with the aura of what Ethan refers to as the “thrill of sport.”

At this point, readers, we believe we’ve arrived at an understanding that we—your guides, by default, through a world of beer that can only be described as being “devoid of all craft”—have your very best interests at heart. We attended the night game with every intention of reviewing one of this nation’s finest lagers, ales or any alcoholic beverage that costs less than 99 cents. We remember drinking beer there, but we have long since forgotten its name. It was wheaty. It was bubbly. It got us where we needed to be. We should be clear, the beer will not be mentioned again.

What we will be discussing, instead, is the sheer pleasure of slurping away at a brown paper bag. Our beverages were incognito, obscured thanks to the folks over at Moulton Express. Our inebriation was plain to see. If you’re not getting the picture yet, this is a review of the ubiquitous, scandalous, anonymous yet oh-so-obvious Open Container.

We’ve decided that intense mediocrity, punctuated by brief moments of triumph, is far more satisfying than sustained success—and apparently, the Bowdoin football team agrees. The acoustics of the opening of a beer—that crack and hiss—are far superior in the open air. A sweaty, dank basement just doesn’t provide the same sonic experience. The first sip (which leads to a second, third and so on) feels like a wave of hydration, refreshing your throat even as the dry night air threatens to turn it into the Desert of Maine. The satisfaction of crushing your empty can against your forehead—attempting to give yourself CTE in solidarity with the players on the field—is magical. (After the fourth head bang we could taste the rainbow.) These moments of greatness are only accentuated by the fact that every sip between them is taken from a can that is freezing your hands and getting flatter by the second. Just like the Democratic party, ya’ hang on to this beverage because it’s the only chance you got at a decent world and a good buzz. (But frankly, if they elect Nancy Pelosi back as the Speaker of the House, we’re going to need a bigger brown paper bag. We’re endorsing Barbara Lee.)

We didn’t get the blue wave. (Though maybe we did? Can’t be sure.) Democratic hopes have exploded like America’s hopes of flexing on the Ruskies over Cape Canaveral at 11:39 a.m. all those years ago—it wasn’t just the second stage rocket, that whole thing blew up. Beto O’Rourke will not be a senator come January, despite being almost immeasurably hotter than his opponent. Sean Hannity awkwardly fist-bumped the president at a campaign rally, signaling the official time-of-death of journalistic integrity—hence, our departure from even attempting to talk about beer. Aren’t you bored of that anyways?

We didn’t get the blue wave. Instead we got a “Cool Blue” Gatorade bottle slipped to us at half-time by a soon-to-be transported first year. The optics fooled your astute columnists, but it certainly didn’t taste like Gatorade.

We didn’t get the wave. But last Saturday night, for one brief moment, we achieved greatness. We surged onto the field with passion paralleled only by America’s hordes of geriatrics storming the polls with every intent of making this country worse. Moments after the scoreboard ticked off its final second, we lay under the mass of trampled flesh and Canada Goose jackets at center field. Many were crying for help. As aid was offered to us, we yelled back, “This is how we want to go.” Like Beto’s hopes of flipping the second worst state in the union, our brown paper bags laid in tatters. RIP in peace, you magnificent lion.

Sheesh.