First of all, let me just say that the Lawrence Journal-World should seriously consider paying me a commission for all the times I link you guys up to their website. If anyone from the LJW is out there reading this, what do you say? Surely we can work something out?
In yesterday's LJW, there was a front page article about how Thursdays are the new "it" night for college students to go out and drink. This is news? I was in college over ten years ago, and Thursdays were the hot night then. Maybe I'm way off-base here, but I'm thinking it wasn't "new" when I was in college either.
The article starts off with a funny line about how "the best drink specials aren't confined to Fridays and Saturdays." Maybe other bars have great specials on weekend nights; I've never noticed that we had any particularly great specials those nights because, well, people tend to go out drinking anyway. An astute commenter also notes that the best drink specials probably occur earlier in the week, when bars are trying to bring in more customers.
The article goes on to talk about the various psychology professors who have conducted studies that correlate lower Friday classroom attendance with binge drinking on Thursday nights. It's always the psychology professors who spend the time researching things that are merely common sense to the rest of us. I was a psych major in college, and I'm the first one to make fun of some of the ridiculous research studies. {Of course, they're probably making more money than me, too. Common sense doesn't seem to get a person very far in the world of wealth.} Apparently, even the U.S. Surgeon General is blaming universities for students' Thursday night drunkenness, because they don't schedule enough classes on Fridays.
And the University of Kansas is jumping on the bandwagon now. The powers-that-be have convened a special task force to study this issue and come up with solutions. I volunteered to serve on this committee, since I am now gainfully employeed on the Hill, and for some crazy reason thought I might actually be able to contribute to this group. Apparently lots of people wanted to serve on this group- maybe they thought they would actually get alcohol?- and so I received a polite email declining my offer to participate and explaining that they had selected staff members "with more professional experience in this area."
Huh? I guess I see their point. I really have no experience with being a college student and frequenting bars (even, gasp!, as an underage college student) on Thursday nights (and every other night of the week) and subsequently skipping my Friday morning classes. I also have no knowledge from the other side, as an adult who still frequents bars (less frequently now, albeit legally) and observes the college students in all their drunken revelry. And I certainly have no experience with the inner workings of the alcohol industry. No husband who has managed a bar for as long as I've know him. No bar that we actually now co-own. Silly me for thinking I could contribute a fresh perspective to the issue.
I almost forgot. To add even more irony- at least in my own little world- the photo that accompanied the article was of a group of girls toasting one of their birthdays at...
The Sandbar.
