Drunk Goggles

When I say drunk goggles what do you think of? You may think back to the high school and college days when you had too much to drink and suddenly the sasquatch looking thing across the room began to look good. That's what I always thought of too, up until now.

We are in the middle of the D.A.R.E. program at school. It is a wonderful program with so much incredibly useful information. We have begun learning about alcohol and all of the effects it can have when consumed in excessive amounts. In order to demonstrate how little control you have of yourself when drunk, our D.A.R.E. officer brought in a pair of drunk goggles. Not only do these huge plastic goggles look ridiculous on, they make you do ridiculous things.

We brought the kids to an open space in the library and had them pop these fashionable goggles on. Similar to a sobriety test police would conduct in a traffic stop, the students were asked to perform seemingly simple tasks. Walking along a straight line of tape, standing on one foot, and catching a ball. To see a ten year old stumble, wobble, and trip over themselves was beyond hysterical. They had no idea how to control themselves with these drunk goggles on. The point was certainly taken. Not only did they see they had no self control, but they saw how stupid it made one another look.

The kids enjoyed having the drunk goggles on. However, the one part of the lesson they enjoyed most was when I had to put the goggles on. I put them on with complete confidence, sure that I had been to level of drunkenness these goggles would portray several times before. This shouldn't be a problem. I felt I was always very skilled at hiding the fact that I drunk. My confidence only skyrocketed when as I peered through them. Sure, I thought, I have certainly been here before.

The difference today is while physically I was drunk, mentally I was not. I could feel that my body was not stable. I felt unbalanced and wobbly. When I was really drunk, I always felt like I was strutting! But Lord, trying to walk that straight line I was anything but strutting. Standing on one foot was no easy task either. But, possibly the worst was getting a ball thrown to me. Although only one was thrown, there were three of them coming at me. I wasn't sure which one to try to catch. Guess what? I chose the wrong one and the ball bounced across the library floor. To make it even more amusing to my audience of ten year olds, it was decided that I had to find the ball and pick it up. This was even harder than catching it! I continued to jam my fingers into the ground thinking my hand was lined up with that silly ball. At one point, I actually lost my balance and ended up crawling across the floor to get the ball. Lovely!

All in all, it was a fun learning experience. Yes, the drunk goggles were an excellent resource to show elementary students how much drinking alcohol messes with you. Maybe they should also revisit this in high school so the teenagers can see how unsexy they are when they are anialated. And to think, that's what I looked like most of the time when I was chasing Jeff down! He must have simply had his drunk goggles on!