I know first-years shouldn’t drink, but they will. So I have elected to offer information that I know they will be both interested in and dependent of come 4:12 a.m. on 10/10/2010.

I have researched and developed an alcohol tally system for first-years that drink too much. You will think you’re sober, but I’ll be the judge of that. I will not be using drunkenness this weekend to measure coolness. One of you will drink excessively for no reason. Your classmates will nickname you The Ultimate Tool. Naming the first-year that drinks him- or herself to the emergency room The Ultimate Tool is a new Grinnell tradition. If you know how much your parents pay for you to go to school, don’t be this year’s super-functional, generic version of the Leatherman Multi—need I say more?

Every year it seems like at least one first-year pushes that limit, a limit my innovative “Smash Forehead” system tends to forestall. I’m sure that most people reading this article have seen students or young adults with tally marks on their thigh, foot, rib cage, hip, stomach, scapula, femur, lower back, ankle, neck, cheek, forearm, wrist or hand. A critical body part, however, is missing from that extensive, yet censored, list of places where people typically keep track of their estimated alcohol intake. And so I am advocating a tally system that utilizes the under-employed forehead.
If you are drinking a beer right now, you are already halfway to using the “Smash Forehead” system, first-year. Now, in the context of this weekend and others of similar magnitude, let’s say the beer you are (or might as well be) currently drinking is your eighth of the night. Every student in the North Campus dorm you are pre-gaming in is looking at you and laughing, not because of your moderate level of intoxication, but because of the seven red and fading rings on your forehead. When you finish your eighth beer, you must smash it on your forehead. Then, carry the flattened can on your head to a recycling bin. It does take practice and you should probably squeeze the can lightly before you dispose of it, but next, I will explain how “Smash Forehead” prevents binge drinking-induced blackouts.

Fast-forward to beer 14 or 16—you’re not sure. You know that you are still on campus because you tripped over the train tracks. Now you are sitting on the ground, or the sidewalk precisely, and you are finishing that some-teenth beer. Once the beer is gone, so is the useful half of your reasoning. You can only half-remember the process you have done successfully at least 13 times earlier in the night. You have been lightly squeezing your empty beer cans then smashing them on your head. Luckily for you, you only remember the second half of the process. Finally, you smash a beer can on your bruised head. The impact knocks you out cold, and you lay there until someone takes you home, or until the Grinnell Police Department books you. “Smash Forehead” prevents binge drinking-induced blackouts—sort of.