This is not about drinking a lot of beer. Many people do, especially in college, and very especially in the service. Granted, thirteen quarts of beer in one evening is a lot for anyone, but this is not about an attempt to get into the Guinness Book. Rather it’s what happened after.

But first, some background. The third floor of our fraternity house had two rooms, and one large “dorm” with rows of Army surplus cots. (There were no beds in the rooms, which meant we could have girls in our rooms during parties. Those were the rules.) Senior year, I was living in one of the third floor rooms, with Doug and Murph as roommates.

The night of the Thirteen Schaefer Quarts, the drinking was being done in one of the basement rooms. Doug and I, and a coed guest, were up in our room, having a quiet evening at home. Around 10:30 p.m., Murph came upstairs to the dorm and went straight to bed.

Half an hour later, we heard a crash. I stepped into the dorm and flipped on the light to see what had happened, and found Murph standing by his bed, which had tipped over. He was giggling. The mattress was standing at a steep angle, and, to our wondering eyes, it was soaked. Murph had wet the bed. But the wetting had gone beyond a mere pool of pee. The bed was soaked. There was a straight line about waist high, and then a complete and total soaking. As if giant hands had picked it up and dipped it in a swimming pool. I blinked, unable to believe my eyes. It was the wettest bed I had ever seen.

Still giggling, Murph brushed past me, went to his dresser and dropped his soaked, plaid boxers. Clad only in a t-shirt, he smiled at our female guest, picked out a dry pair of boxers and pulled them on. He giggled again, charged back out to the row of beds, selected the dry one next to his own, and tumbled in.

We turned out the dorm light and closed the door. My bed was next in line, so I slept in my room that night.