AUBURN, Maine — Local resident Charles Brennan’s screen door proved to be an effective way to measure the sobriety of guests at his house party last Thursday evening, pragmatic and inebriated sources confirmed this past weekend.
“This is a total game-changer,” said housemate Carly Hubinger. “We don’t want anyone too hammered driving themselves home, but when the band’s going it’s hard to tell how blasted some people actually are. One second somebody’s in the zone playing cornhole, and five minutes later they’re driving through the front of a Wendy’s. Lucky for me, the complete lack of motor function required to do something as simple as walking through a door frame without becoming entangled in the screen and requiring assistance to get out, lets me know for sure that somebody is in bad shape.”
Brennan feels differently about the careless destruction of his property and wishes his guests weren’t so cavalier.
“Listen, I understand that everybody walks through a screen door at some point in their life,” he said. “Fuck, I’ve even done it sober. I can just pop it back on its tracks and then go about the rest of my day. The problem is that when somebody wants a running start to the swimming pool from the far end of my living room on the second floor and runs through the screen and the glass, then it’s no longer a sobriety check. It’s pure, unbridled property destruction at this point.”
Local party veteran Eric Stewart weighed in on proper party etiquette.
“If you’re planning to invite a bunch of people who can’t regularly afford their own booze into your home to be their own bartenders all night, then you should expect at least $500 worth of damage,” he said. “And it’s great that the screen door sobriety check is there, because even after the entire door frame has been absolutely decimated and the deck covered in glass, it’s safe to say that if somebody is walking outside barefoot without flinching, that they shouldn’t even be operating a glass of water unsupervised at this point.”
At press time, Brennan was seen shopping for a new door at Lowe’s by hurling himself into the displays and assessing the damage.
Photo by Jana Miller.