Picture the typical party scene: There's the somewhat - excuse my bluntness - skanky-looking and not-so-modestly dressed girls who seem to mistake the living room for a strip club on the south side of Chicago.
Then you have the smokers outside who sometimes don't even make an appearance into the actual party, as they seem more content standing outside yelling at girls who walk by.
You can't forget the beer pong players who get so into the game that it becomes more intense than the Colts' last - and first - playoff game. So that's a stretch, but the game somehow becomes much more than simply throwing a ball into a cup.
There is yet another group whose presence might go unnoticed, but it never fails to make an appearance. This group is sporadically scattered throughout the party - one person is outside, one is in the bathroom, and a couple are in different bedrooms throughout the house. You might not notice them, but they're there. They're always there.
They're the drunk dialers of Ball State University.
This is where you finally identify with a group mentioned. You belong somewhere, at last, along with a large number of other Ball State students who have drunk dialed at some point or another.
All I know is, for some reason, the mix of alcohol and music makes people feel unusually close to everyone in their phonebooks, and they just know everyone is dying to hear from them. Never mind the fact that it's 1 a.m. and they haven't talked to the person they're calling in months - or possibly ever. They just know this is the perfect time to call Good Ol' Aunt B, their landlords or that random number with no name next to it. The drunken state of lowered inhibition and extreme vulnerability feels like an excellent time to succumb to the desire to call whatever number looks tempting.
Cell phone companies are on top of this, too. After thinking long and hard of any possible new way to steal money from users, they have created a solution to drunk dialing.
Virgin Mobile in Australia has offered, for the past couple of years, a service that allows cell phone users to block themselves from dialing certain numbers during night hours. The service is called Dialing Under the Influence and only requires users to dial 333 followed by the number they want blocked. Virgin Mobile then stops all calls to that number until 6 a.m. Although the service is not yet available in the United States, Virgin Mobile representatives have discussed bringing it here.
At first glance, this might seem like the perfect solution - an end to embarrassing and pointless phone calls forever. Trust me, though, it's not.
Dialing Under the Influence costs 25 cents per number, which is money that college students need to spend on more imperative issues - such as bills, rent, food and alcohol. And most people would have to block nearly all the numbers in their phones, which would rack up the price even more. Plus, who is going to take time away from Facebooking, watching "Family Guy" and downloading music to spend time blocking numbers? To me, self-control seems like a better option.
It's simple: Smart people wouldn't drunk dial.
Although drunk dialing can bring humor to a party and even an excuse to make the call again when sober, it really is better to use self-control and not drunk dial. Drunk dialing can put you in bad situations that are sometimes hard to get out of, and you might not even remember them.
Instead, spend time hanging out with the people around you and actually having fun, rather than fumbling around for your phone to call someone who doesn't want to talk to you anyway. Those 10 minutes of talking to someone you barely know on the phone are 10 minutes less that you can dance, play beer pong or just enjoy the people you are with.
So, no matter how tempting it is to give Good Ol' Aunt B a call, practice some self-control and just make catcalls outside with the smokers instead.
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