by RAF KATIGBAK

The date was a week last Wednesday. The scene was a stuffy library in Beaconsfield High School. Piled between dusty unread volumes of Moby Dick, To Kill a Mockingbird and pamphlets warning against teen pregnancy were 100 or so parents and their children, some administrative bigwigs like principal David Hatfield, and a few officials from the governing board.

The reason was to hopefully settle once and for all the debate about whether or not it was okay to let BHS Grade 11 students drink while travelling abroad on their annual European trip next year. Which, according to digital photos of last April’s London excursion leaked to the press, is what happened: teens—under the watchful eye of chaperones—chugging beer and wolfing down martinis at the Hard Rock Café.

As expected, some parents were concerned that drinking had no business during any school activities (although I’m sure there are a few high school geography teachers out there who would beg to differ). But surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of parents voted against a proposed no-drinking ban on school trips.

A few probably thought that drinking was an integral part of the European experience. Most probably realized that 16-year-olds will get crunked one way or another, so they might as well include a person responsible enough to lift their child’s hair out of the way as they make a 3 a.m. offering of fish and chips to the porcelain god.

It’s the kind of failsafe, down-to-earth parental logic that calls to mind that Kids in the Hall skit where Scott Thompson (as the doting mother, out the door for a weekend getaway) tells Bruce McCullough (her burn-out son), first, “Don’t get drunk,” and second, “if you’re going to get drunk, do it in the basement so you don’t fall down the stairs.”

But despite the majority of parents opposed to stricter rules on class trips, Wednesday night ended with the governing board still undecided, preferring instead to reconvene in early October.

For now, it seems as though an essential part of what makes Québécois youth cooler than the rest of North America—the ability to hold our liquor at a young age—has been defended, and students should be celebrating about how “the man” failed to “keep them down” yet again, right? Wrong.

Students, think about it: There is nothing less cool than getting wasted with a chaperone. Except maybe getting high with your dad. Specifically, that moment when you’re both extremely high and you realize your stoner-induced cultural references are about as convergent as a Method Man/Woody Allen gymnastic routine.

Him: “Son, have you ever listened to the Allman Brothers?”

You: “Ummm...”

Him: “...I mean, reeeeaaally listened?”

You: “Word. I gotta bounce...”

Getting stoned with your parents or getting drunk with a chaperone defeats the purpose of getting stoned or drunk as a teen in the first place. BHS students should consider, isn’t this just what “the man” wants? To diffuse the danger, and make drinking and drugs an awkward experience that you never want to brag to your friends about? After all, there’s nothing more cringe-y than hearing someone go, “Me and my mom got sooooo wasted last night! It was awesome!”

Of course, the fact that the BHS students went to the Hard Rock Café should be proof enough for them that chaperones are trying to suck every ounce of cool out of getting wasted. In fact, isn’t there a law against publicly discussing how many $9 “Classic Rock-tinis” it takes before you’re too drunk to taste your “Riders On the Storm Rockin’ Concoction?” The whole thing makes me want to cough up my Purple Hooter all over my Boneless Bodacious Tenders (smothered in Heavy Metal sauce).

It’s time for BHS students to realize that what’s at stake here isn’t just getting shit-faced Euro style. What’s at risk is the very drunken essence of the high school experience. I call upon BHS students to rise up against their cultural oppressors and return drinking on school trips to what it’s always meant to be: a clandestine, hormone-fuelled, bile-filled orgy of alcohol poisoning and painful social embarrassment. Who’s with me?!

» Riff-Raff@sympatico.ca

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