 "Photo: Chris Huang")
It is 2 a.m. on a Friday night. A young Boston College student, delirious with joy at having caught the last precious Comm Ave. bus of the evening, literally packs herself into the dank, beer-reeking bus along with about 70 other jolly characters.
Surrounded by the sounds of the bus driver's Argentinean calypso-jazz blaring on the stereo, two rugby players partaking in a pull-up contest over the parallel safety bars, and the spunky red haired Irish kid struggling through a freestyle rap about his X-box playing prowess, the young lady makes a fateful decision that she will soon regret.
From her knock-off Burberry handbag emerges a cell phone, which she proceeds to open, and without thinking, press the first number on her speed dial. "Mom? It's me ... I'm sorry, were you sleeping?"
This student, has become the latest victim to the trend consuming college campuses across the nation: drunk-dialing.
Her story is one that many BC students can sympathize with. For some reason, whenever the drinks come out, it suddenly seems like a great idea to bring out the cell phone as well.
Before the advent of mobile phones with built-in phonebooks and speed dials, the effort a person under the influence of alcohol would have had to put forth to make an ill advised telephone call made drunk-dialing a relatively unknown problem.
Now, however, with a mere press of a button, people are instantly connected to a number of friends, family, co-workers, and businesses, making it that much easier to make a bad choice.
Under normal circumstances such an advance in technology would ordinarily be seen as an amazing convenience, but it seems to have not come without a cost: a small portion of human dignity.
The problem of drunk-dialing has so infected our culture that in a recent Virgin Mobile survey of its customers, 95 percent of over 400 respondents admitted to drunk-dialing.
As a result, the service provider has begun providing an experimental service to its customers in Australia. While they still maintain their rational state of sobriety, subscribers can select specific phone numbers which they would like their phones to be prevented from dialing until 6 a.m.
Given that such a face-saving service has yet to appear in the United States, this task is often left to the friends of the chronic drunk-dialer.
This is not usually such a rewarding role for friends to fill. It can be quite amusing to be an observer when the drunk dial is going on, and some people find themselves randomly dialing just to amuse their friends.
"I have a habit of calling people when they're already in my presence. And I have a habit of singing too, whole songs, if necessary, just to amuse people," said Chris Young, A&S '07. "A lot of my friends really enjoy my drunk dials."
Shawn McGrath, A&S '07, has become known to many of his friends as a most persistent and notorious drunk-dialer. His reputation has grown to the point that at a recent BC men's hockey game against Northeastern, McGrath needed to be physically restrained by two of his friends from calling every girl in his phonebook from high school who goes to Northeastern with the purpose of informing them how poorly their hockey team was performing.
"There's always one girl I call first, the girl I dated my senior year of high school," says McGrath with an air of an almost proud acceptance of his habit. "She goes to Syracuse, and every time, before she manages to hang up on me, I always get the 'Syracuse sucks' in there."
McGrath recounts that his crowning achievement in the realm of drunk-dialing occurred on the Sunday in the wake of the recent blizzard when he, like the majority of his fellow students, became incensed that classes had yet to be cancelled for the following day.
Determined to give someone a piece of his mind, McGrath called the voicemail of University President William P. Leahy, S.J., calling it "ludicrous and borderline reprehensible that in light of such treacherous arctic conditions classes would still be held."
After roughly two minutes of a rambling and often slurred discourse, McGrath, keeping perfectly in line with the tremendous school spirit by which his drunken phone calls are characterized, ended his glorious phone call with the immortal words "GO EAGLES."
A Web site called slackertown.com has taken the liberty of recording the telephone messages of drunkards across the country which it posts on the Internet for the listening pleasure of all. Unfortunately however, drunk-dialing is not always fun and games. It can often times turn into a quite destructive force as it tends to make people brutally honest.
Frequently, the victims of the drunk dial are the dialers themselves; they often call ex-girlfriends/boyfriends or love interests, and when all is said and done, the damage is usually concentrated on their side.
"There is someone I really care about, and when I get really drunk I call them and tell them I'm in love with them, but the feelings aren't reciprocated. The next morning it is always really awkward," said Young.
Sam Reidy, A&S '06, also phoned his ex one night after a party, but his story had a happier ending. "I was at a party, and it was like three in the morning, and I called up my ex. We were still close friends. We were just chatting, and I said, 'Hey I miss you, you should come up and chill.'
The funny thing was that she actually called back the next morning, and I had not remembered calling her the night before. She said she was glad I had called her because she was planning on calling me anyways. And at that point I was panicked because I did not remember calling her or what I had said," Reidy said.
Additionally, parents or friends back home become the target of these late-night escapades. This form of drunk dialing can be one of the most damaging.
"I tried to call my best friend's cell phone, but I accidentally called his parents' house," said Young. "It was like three in the morning. The next time I went home they had a little talk with me, and they weren't too happy. Now I have everyone's home numbers clearly marked in my cell phone."
Drunk dialing is an embarrassing and destructive occurance which, especially in recent times, has been putting a damper on the mornings of college students.
The only thing we are left with in preserving our dignity is the sheer power of the will. Let us all hope that we can all learn to overcome our dialing urges to avoid waking up the next morning and upon looking at the outgoing call list, shaking our heads saying, "I really wish I hadn't called my mom at 2 o'clock last night."
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