Back in the fall of 1997, I received a nifty bottle-opener keychain at Dartmouth orientation. It was a stellar addition to my burgeoning key ring as it was both very practical and completely free. Oh, how I enjoyed those heady days of popping the caps off beer bottles without a care in the world. Over time, however, the bottle opener wore down, and I found it an increasing chore to liberate beer from its glassy prison. I’d have to often attack multiple areas of the cap as merely clamping on and pulling up in one place would result in nothing but a violent, embarrassing whiff, leaving the cap intact and my pride shattered.
Eventually, even mutli-prying failed to work. The bottle opener had become totally, inexcusably useless, but I kept it around because it had become a relic of Dartmouth orientation  my rosy-eyed youth, if you will. Plus, I was really too lazy to order another one off the internet. Thankfully, last week IndianJones had to go back to the Alma Mater on a recruiting trip, and being the kindhearted man that he is, he volunteered to pick up whatever items we wanted from the Dartmouth Co-Op (a.k.a. the store that sells all the Dartmouth junk). I realized that eleven years on (holy crap), it was time for an upgrade. I put in an order for a shiny, glossy, new keychain, but this time with a circular design  one that might survive eleven years of weathering and whatnot. IndianJones obliged, and on Saturday night, I went to his apartment to make the official changeover from old to new. I’ll just say this: Yankee Stadium’s got nothing on this.
