Century Club: Piece of Cake or Drunken Nightmare?
by LaToya Prater

Special thanks go to: Dennis Cook and Buzzard Beach for their hospitality and accommodation, Marita for being the only female who had the balls to play the game; "Thtick Pony" for helping keep score, "Tooth Fairy" for being our Beer Bitch, and Ike for shelling out the cash.

If you've never heard of "Century Club," it's that drinking game where you are supposed to drink 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes (one shot per minute). Now if you ask people who have done it before, they usually launch into a rant about how bad it "fucks you up" and how they couldn't get past 80, etc.

But 100 ounces of beer is, what, eight or nine beers, in an hour and forty minutes? We seriously wondered how hard it could be, considering that's just a typical Sunday morning for any tried and true KCDrinker.

We decided to conduct a little experiment to see just what the effects of this game would be on several different people. My theory was that the people who get that messed up have been drinking before they get the bright idea to play Century Club, and that probably has a lot to do with why they puke, writhe in pain, pass out, or, worse, start quoting Monty-bloody-Python.

Our subjects included:

Marita
Sex: Female
Age: 43
Size: XS (about 5' tall, 120 lbs., Catholic school teacher - meow!)
Conditions: arrived sober, last meal was around noon that day

Mike
Sex: Male
Age: 33
Size: XL (over 6', could be a linebacker if he wasn't a lazy disc jockey)
Conditions: arrived hung over with stomach problems (all the mail had been moved, if you know what I mean) and hadn't eaten in more than 24 hours

Ike
Sex: Male
Age: 33
Size: XL (over 6', tall, drunk and handsome)
Conditions: consumed one beer prior to beginning game, last meal was at 3:30 p.m. that day

Long story short, conducting Century Club is very boring. Everyone dutifully took their shots of beer at the top of each minute, complaining that they couldn't wait to get started on their real drinking, because this was boring. However, and quite suddenly, by about the 80th shot mark, the three participants were getting loud, rowdy and exhibiting typical signs of drunkenness, including inflated sense of self, inflated sense of own indestructibility and inflated sense of love for friends and strangers alike. Phrases shouted across the table repeatedly between participants included:

"I ROCK."
"Lookit me go, I am AWESOME."
"You ARE awesome!"
"No, you're awesome. I LOVE you."
"I know, I'm awesome, but you're awesome, you rock AND I rock."
"And they said I couldn't do this. I can do it because I ROCK."
"I love you guys."
"I'm definitely not drunk…(slurred unintelligible babble) but I'm feeling pretty good."
"Can someone hold me up in my seat?"
"Jesus F*cking Christ, I have to pee."

And so on.

And when the 100 had finally been drunk, we had three very happy and loud participants who loved themselves, each other and, in Mike's case, the low hanging ceiling in Buzzard's downstairs, which he bashed his head into it twice (we're pretty sure it wasn't on purpose).

In a short time, the full effect was upon our participants, who were all clearly very drunk, one weeping, one fretting about needing to puke and pass out immediately, and one who went and ordered a shot of Irish whiskey (but even he had to cut the evening short due to feeling awful in another hour or two).

We interviewed each participant immediately after, and this is what they had to say:

LaToya: We've secretly switched their Folgers Crystals with beer. Let's see what happens. Ike, what did you think of Century Club?

Ike: Thazzeazzy. I had a good buzz (starts quoting Edgar Allan Poe) 'Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary over many a quaint and curious…'

(Ike, after)

LaToya: That's really more than enough, thank you. Ok, Mike, what did you think of Century Club?

Mike: I think it's uh…it's pretty easy. It's not as hard as I thought.

LaToya: You of all people came here not feeling so well, you hadn't eaten…

Mike: I still don't feel well, I…I…I've got the runs and I've got 24 hours without eating, and uh, I'm pretty fucked up. Did we even do 100 shots? I coulda prolly kept going, honestly, but I am drunk. I don't think we did a hundred. Did we do the full hundred?

LaToya: So you felt like it wasn't a big problem?

Mike: No. Are you sure we did a hundred shots?

(Mike, during)

LaToya: Yeah. More than that, actually, because I forgot to record a bunch of them.

Mike: WHAT?

LaToya: Moving on. Marita? Wake up, Marita. Are you OK? Don't cry! You did it!

Marita: I ROCK. My husband said I couldn't do it but I SO DID IT. I am the hottest fucking Century Club…I am so fucking hot.

(Marita, after)

Conclusions? Century Club can be done, but even an expert drinker who starts out sober should expect to feel very drunk and should arrange to pass out where they are or have someone else take them home. If you're a maudlin drunk, bring Kleenex. If you're a puker, bring breath mints and if you're a beer goggler, have your more trustworthy sober friends pick out the girl/guy you're going to try to talk into taking you home that night, because your judgment's going to be shit.

- www.KCDrinker.com - 2005 ©

LaToya "GfV" Prater  is a free-lance drinker and writer. A native of New Jersey, she got hammered in Hoboken a few years back and woke up in Kansas City tied to the passenger seat of a '77 El Dorado with Jim Nabors, wearing nothing but the Purple Heart. Now a resident of KC, Mo., Prater indulges her overwhelming addiction to editing other people’s copy to earn a paycheck and spends the rest of her time focusing on her three dearest passions: alcohol, writing fiction and acting (Japanese balloon fetish porn).