During the end-run of business school, on June 23 2008, we were so drained and head-screwed-on-wrong and stressed and just plain wrung out like old dirty washcloths that you could feel the sheer limp exhaustion hanging in the air like a bad hangover.
One of the Belgians decided, in his infinite wisdom, that June 23 would henceforth be known as International Bloody Mary Day, and it was a Good Thing.
That morning, a few of us set up a table on a sunny lawn outside one of the main lecture halls on campus, liberally stocked with tomato juice, salt, pepper, Tabasco, limes, celery (you can’t have a good Bloody Mary without an obnoxious bush of celery hanging out of your glass) and, of course, a Soviet motor rifle division command headquarters’ worth of third rate vodka. It helped that some of the more alcoholic of our class had made good friends with the bar counter staff in the school cafeteria, and so generous quantities of ice were on hand to help deal with the welcome heat of a sunny French morning.
The welcoming drinks, chairs, and friendly drunks served to persuade an appreciable number of weaker-willed passers-by to join the party, while at the latest, the third or fourth Bloody Mary in turn dissuaded them from bothering to attend class. All the while, a withering hurricane of envious looks passed our way from the poor saps caught in a mind-numbingly dull economics lecture (or at least it must have seemed that way, compared to the happy drunks reveling in the sunshine outside.) There was always room at the table, with participants stumbling off to sleep off the first round or two under the trees nearby.
Person after person was persuaded to drop their no doubt important homework / job search / social plans and join the fun; even running out of vodka was no impediment to the single-minded impromptu bar outside. The Belgian connection came through once again, not only recruiting a compatriot finance professor to join us for a snort, but convincing him to donate a long-dormant bottle of vodka that a student had once presumably attempted to bribe him with.
And so, June 23 is now International Bloody Mary Day. Just don’t forget the celery. It’s not a real bloody mary without it.