Local officials have launched efforts to develop a system preventing drunken college students in Wisconsin from falling into the nearby rivers and drowning. Some say this is what happens when you have “three rivers, three universities, and three dollar pitchers of beer.” Others feel that government is the solution. Here is a scene this brings to mind:


“U Wis, U Wis, U Wis,” echoed the chant from the table of drunken college jocks in Zbars, the post game hangout tavern. They were celebrating the end of an undefeated season by the University of Wisconsin football team.

The drinking had been phenomenal, even by their standards. Gallons of $3 dollar pitchers of beer had been consumed in a blazing fit of drinking games. Whale’s tales and all of its variations had been run through to give their inebriation a purpose. First, there was “Blind man tales” where the participants had to close their eyes. Then, “Lightening tales” where the normal 3 seconds allotted for a response was shortened to 1 second. Base 16 tales that relied on a base 16 number system (that was the favorite of the math major in their group but was unplayable by everyone else, who were business and communication majors.). Later on, it was shots upon shots. Jared had gotten drunk to the point where he was going in and out of consciousness.

At one point, they were attempting to embarrass the cute bar maid by ordering drinks like “sex on the beach”, “fuzzy nipples”, and “reach arounds.”

She became rather annoyed and sarcastically asked Jared if he’d like “a stick up the ass.”

He was up for anything, so he replied “sure, bring it on, babe. Never heard of that drink but I'm up for something new.”

His memory went foggy beyond that. He blacked out for a moment and awoke with his pants at his ankles, quite a lot of blood on the floor and a mixture of laughter and utter shock amongst his friends.

At a few minutes past midnight, Jared announced his departure and left the tavern en route for his dorm. He took the scenic route, the paved pathway along one of the three rivers in town. Like a drunken Frankenstein, he ambled with stiff legs in a staggered gait. The sound of the river, trickling in the darkness to his side, was hypnotizing.

Humming to himself, he concluded that the walk along the river was worth the extra 10 minutes it would take him to get home this way. His stagger meandered along the river bank. He heard a sharp click in the darkness towards the water and was suddenly hit with a blinding flash from hundreds of ultra-high wattage mercury arc lamps, along with an ear piercing siren. A voice boomed through loudspeakers. “YOU ARE APPROACHING THE RIVER BANK, TURN BACK IMMEDIATELY.”

The lights turned off and he was utterly blind and dazed and he fell to his knees. The siren continued sounding and the volume increased if that was possible. He writhed on the ground like James T. Kirk in many an episode.

Jared crawled on his hands and knees in an attempt to escape the chaos and in his confusion he rolled further down the bank towards the river. A buzzing sound came from the trees off in the distance as a laser beam shot at him. He smelled the distinctive odor of ozone and burning flesh as his right hand was vaporized just below the wrist. He tried to brace himself up with the bloody stump, but fell down further towards the river. The laser continued firing and he was hit with several blasts which burned deep craters into his chest.

The arc lamps fired up again and another warning was sounded but it was so loud he could not make out what it was saying. Parts of it sounded to be in Spanish. He did hear the phrase “This is your final warming,” as he stood up and attempted to climb up the river bank, away from the water. He tripped and rolled several feet down towards the river into a grove of maple trees.

A large screen rose up out of the ground, and the image of a woman manically signing for the deaf relayed warnings for the hearing impaired. While the sirens had pretty much killed his hearing, he had flunked his intro to American Sign Language class, having rationalized it with "When the hell am I ever going to use this"

Bracing himself on his stump of an arm, Jared turned towards an oddly familiar sound off in the distance moments before recognizing it as a high-end pitching machine like the one he had used in little league more than a decade ago. Baseballs were hurled at him at 100 mph and to make matters worse, they were all wicked curve balls that broke several feet at the last minute, making any attempt to dodge the projectiles impossible. The first few baseballs hit him directly on the jaw and knocked most of his teeth out along that side of his face. He spit the teeth out like watermelon seeds as he laid down flat on the ground. Just when he devoped the skill to dodge the balls, they changed to knuckballs.

As he began to lose consciousness, he saw what he thought to be an end of life hallucination, a pack of wild rabid wolverines roaring down the embankment towards him. Ironically the U Wis. football team had just beaten University of Michigan, the wolverines. It looks like it was payback time. The wolverines were on him in no time, ripping at his flesh with their razor sharp teeth and claws. The pain actually seemed to bring him back to life and he stood up, shaking the mean beasties off of him.

With a flash and a wiff of ozone, a man all dressed in black suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Tack To,” he said commandingly to the animals. The attack stopped as quickly as it had started and the wolverines stood in single file, at attention. “Ton Ta Tee” he said and the animals turned and marched single file into the darkness.

Jared stood on unstable legs, blood running from the stump which had once been his hand and fluids oozing from several craters burned into his body.

The man dressed in black, clicked the button on a blue tooth and spoke a quite command. Second later, a group of his underlings arrived.

“Take care of this,” he said to them unemotionally, as Jared fell to the ground unconscious.

Rocks were tied to the drunkard’s arms and legs and he was thrown into the river. The morning paper would announce yet another tragic tavern related drowning in the city with “3 colleges, 3 rivers, and 3 dollar pitchers.” A meeting would be held later in the day in the mayor’s office to request additional funds to enhance the secret river warning system that had been put into place just that month. Certainly the $60,000 phase one system was just a beginning.

“This is a problem that must be solved,” the mayor commanded.

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