Author: Kelly – University of Iowa

Maybe it will be a friendly game after all.

It’s been almost a month since Iowa dominated the Orange Bowl the college bowl games, and I am already going through fits of withdrawal. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night on my couch, wearing a jersey, with my hand in a bag of pretzels and have no idea how I got there. Sighh, it’s going to be a long seven months until next season.

But lucky for me, the Super Bowl is here to take my mind off that so I can enjoy day-drinking and eating obscene amounts of nine-layer taco dip and wings once again.

After the nail-biter championship game last Sunday, the Super Bowl will be sure to not disappoint. Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints beat out Brett Favre’s Green Bay Packers Minnesota Vikings in overtime to become the NFC champions and move on to face Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. And there is no better way to celebrate this great coming together of teams than with a lot of beer…

Yes, it’s time for another CollegeCandy drinking game!

Now, there are plenty of football drinking games out there, but this one has been specially created with you lovely ladies in mind. So break out the beer bong and add some Super Bowl decorations to your plot on FarmVille (okay, maybe that’s just me), because here we bring you the CollegeCandy’s Official Super Bowl Drinking Game!

First, it’s crucial that you pick a team to drink to, unless you woke up feeling like P. Diddy and are ready to take on drinking for both. So pick your favorite team (or whichever you deem has the hottest players), your favorite beer–I don’t recommend mixed drinks for this!–and get ready for some sweaty man-on-man action FOOTBALL! (For reference, I usually judge one drink as one sip, not one huge gulp!)

Whenever your team…

Gets a First Down: drink 5
Intercepts the ball: drink 10
Sacks the Quarterback: drink 10
Kicks a field goal: drink half of your beer
Gets a safety: drink half of someone from the opposing team’s beer
Scores a touchdown: chug half of your drink while you do your best celebration dance
Scores a touchdown off a punt return: chug a full beer and run around the room with your arms in the air

But it can’t all be good.

Whenever your team…

Misses a field goal: scream at the TV, then drink 10
Throws an interception: scream obscenities at the TV, then drink 15
Fumbles: drink 5 (but don’t drop your beer on the floor)
Gets a penalty called: push someone from the opposing team, then drink 5
Quarterback gets sacked: Cry, then drink 5

So those are the basic rules. If you’re planning to drink with guys, they might just stick to that. But if the drinking solely revolved around the game, you’d only be drinking 1/3 of the time (seriously, how does an hour long game last for over three?). Here are a few extras to help liven up the in-between play time.

5 Drinks every time:
A lame car commercial takes up 30-seconds that could have been filled with something far more entertaining.
A cute puppy scores a touchdown during the Puppy Bowl (on Animal Planet during halftime!).
A Peyton Manning commercial comes on.
You ask a guy in the room to explain what just happened.
You secretly wish you had a Cosmo instead of Busch Light.

10 Drinks every time:
The camera zooms in on Kim Kardashian (15 if they mention her badonk, 20 if they mention her potential engagement).
Brett Favre retirement is mentioned.
A member of Peyton’s family is talked about (Archie or Eli).
The camera flashes a cute little kid is holding a sign.
You switch over the the Law and Order: SVU marathon.
The Janet/Justin boob-slip is brought up.

And if you want to get especially saucy and don’t feel like going to class until Thursday, drink 1:
When the quarterback throws a pass.
The Who says the word “who” during the halftime show.
For every yard Reggie Bush runs.
For every yard Peyton Manning throws.

Alright ladies, you have the rules and now the only thing left to do is wait until 6pm EST this Sunday, February 7th to tune into CBS for the showdown!

“What happened last night?”

Ahh, the blackout. These words have become oh-so-familiar over the past two years I’ve spent at this fine university. Sunday mornings – Gatorade and a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich in hand – I sit in my living room with my roommates, attempting to piece together the events from the night before. Looking through pictures, decoding unintelligible text messages sent to the cute guy from Calculus, my friend apologizing for puking on my shoes or stealing my pizza before I had a chance to get the door.

I can’t be mad at them though, or even blame them. Sometimes the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol takes over and there is no turning back. They are no longer the same person and are going to do things they wouldn’t normally do. Like the infamous girl-on-girl makeout sesh which is now plastered all over Facebook.

But like they taught you in elementary school, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. And recently, that person was me.

My boyfriend and I have been together for over two vomit-includingly cute years. We moved in together in August to a new apartment where he makes me dinner after a long night at work, and we’ve even talked marriage.

We were the stereotypical happy couple until about two weeks ago during a blackout sorta night.

All of my friends were finally back in town before this spring (spring? There’s two feet of snow outside) semester started, so naturally we had to celebrate get wasted. After a long night of cheap vodka and too many shots at the bar, we went back to my friend’s apartment for afties. Just another successful night.

That is, until I realized that my boyfriend was missing and I had no idea where he was. I started roaming around the apartment. I looked in the kitchen, then the bathroom. Nothing. Finally, I peeked my head into my friend’s bedroom and there he was. Naked. On top of a girl. Who was also naked.

Naturally, I flipped the eff out. I screamed, I stormed over to the bed and pulled him off of her. I stared at him, anger bubbling up inside of me; his eyes were glazed, he was falling over, and he had no idea where he was. My boyfriend was beyond blacked out.

The rest of the night got a little hazy. I went crazy, taking justice into my own hands. Literally. The next thing I knew, I was handcuffed in the back of a cop car, blowing a .34 BAC (classy, I know) and being charged with domestic assault (apparently some neighbors called the cops to file a noise complaint). Not my finest moment. After I got out and was able to talk to my boyfriend again (sans fists), I demanded answers. But got nothing. He was blacked out the entire time; he didn’t remember being at the bar, going back to the apartment, or even how he ended up with a black eye and a fat lip. (Yeah, I totally JWowwed his ass. I was angry!)

And this fact alone has left me completely torn and unable to eat or sleep. My boyfriend betrayed my trust and really broke my heart. He sent me into a fit of rage I’ve never known before and made a fool out of me.

But can I really blame him for something that happened when he was blackout drunk?
Something that he doesn’t even remember doing?
Can that even be considered cheating?
Do I forgive him?

I honestly don’t know what to think.

The thing about this situation is that everything is not black and white. It would have been so much easier to just dump him and walk away if he was going behind my back on purpose. But he wasn’t. And while nothing technically happened (they didn’t have sex), it scares the shiz out of me to think what would have happened if I hadn’t walked in. It disgusts me to think about my boyfriend being with someone else, or what he was saying to her while they were in bed, or how he ended up there in the first place.

I definitely blame my boyfriend for getting that drunk. Mostly because he always gets that drunk. I blame him for putting himself in that situation and for putting me in that situation. But I still don’t know if I can blame him for what he actually did. I can’t hold him more responsible for his actions than my friend who pukes on my shoes, or the friend who always steals my food when she comes home from the bar drunk. I know neither of them would intentionally hurt me when they’re sober, so is this really different?  I’ve never gotten into a fight with my boyfriend, let alone had to deal with something like this. Until this incident, I never had a reason not to trust him.

Is this a good enough reason?

I understand that to many of you this seems like such a simple answer, but I’m seriously stuck. I love my boyfriend and we have so much history. I honestly don’t know what to do. What do you think? Can blackout mistakes be forgiven?