Opinion
Beer offers more than a buzz for college students
September 18, 2008
When most college students are dirt poor and cannot afford the fancy organic marinade to cook their non-existent fancy steaks in, a realization after a few months of eating greasy pizza rolls is that all the money mom gave you is spent on drugs and beer. Ironically, cheap beer.
Yes, this realization came to me during my sophomore year of college while cooking the steaks a friend shoplifted for us from the grocery store. My roommates and I tended to always stand around in a circle drinking Beast and shouting at each other. At one point, one of my roommates thought it would be awesome to douse his steak in beer. Tada! A surprisingly cheap and tasty marinated dinner was created.
This was only the beginning of the unusual beer uses. Of course, at any time beer was used for something other than drinking it was considered ìalcohol abuse.î But for some reason non-empty beer bottles were still left in the bushes, the porch, the sidewalk, the backyard and in my tomato and flower garden. After three days of being pissed off and accusing them of killing my plants, I noticed the slugs and gnarly monsters that were once eating up my veggies were now inside the beer bottles. They saved my plants! Until the neighbor kids came and stole all my tomatoes to throw at cars.
Once I attempted to relax in a disgusting party house. I put on some chill tunes, grabbed a book, soaked my feet in warm, soapy water, but didn’t forget the beer. While absorbed in the book, I reached for the bottle without using my eyes and knocked the bottle of lager over to be poured right into my tub of soothing feet water. I quickly picked up the bottle and licked the side up to the rim to catch the drips. To refill the tub with cleaner water was too much work for chill-out time. Later, the yeast had made my feet smooth, soft and my calluses were even lessened. Bathe in beer! It’s good for the skin.
A similar thing happened when I was sunbathing in the backyard and somebody spilled a beer on my hair. After letting the beer and sun soak into my locks and post-shampoo, I had lighter streaks.
There are many other beer uses I have seen besides drinking. Once we even made beersicles on a hot day. Another time, my roommate got a bread maker for Christmas and we made beer bread.
Beer makes people happy. This means it will make your nasty bug and rodent friends happy. It will make your hair and skin happy. It will make your food happy. In turn, it will make your body happy. The environment will love you and beer for being happy and being conservative about your waste.
Next time you’re cleaning up after a party and feel obligated to drink the warm, stale beers left over, don’t! Save it for your next cooked meat dinner or bath time. The Beast won’t taste good anyway.
Teresa Aviles is a student at UW-River Falls.