Butterfly Digs Peer Pressure

I’ve always believed that with age comes an abandonment of many teenage entitlements like, sudden erections, pimples, pocket money and submission to peer pressure. I always thought that with age, a degree of resoluteness inures us from submitting to the petty coaxes of our friends.

Apparently, I am wrong – along with many things lately, like guessing the exact number of the human population and phone numbers of random females. Last week, I learnt that if you cannot convince someone to do something, get more people to help in convincing. Remember, teamwork is the source of all successful peer pressuring.

We were at Butter Factory the other week and Yang started bugging DC about a bottle of Krug that DC apparently owes him. I don’t know what that bet was, but DC also owes me a WRX because we had a bet on Transformers 2.

His premise was that Devastator – the combined Constructicons, or if you are really not a fan, the huge robot that was sucking up dirt – was not featured in the film. This was despite the fact that Wikipedia says it is and that in a distinct scene, Megatron actually said, and I quote verbatim,

“Devastator, come here!”

But no, DC chose to ignore all this basing on his principle that Rampage, supposedly being part of Devastator, was fighting Bumble Bee at that time, and hence it was impossible for Devastator to be in the film. Today we discovered that Rampage isn’t part of Devastator, and DC is still not convinced.

Me: “Dude, I went through all that trouble of finding the web for evidence. I deserve at least the steering wheel, or the seat buckle. Or a hug at least.”
DC: “Fuck you!”

Anyway, Yang started bugging him about the bottle of Krug – it’s a champagne for the uninitiated-, and we all started jumping into the fray. It was an alternation between snide remarks and sarcastic banter that was always punctuated with, “but up to you”.

We were playing up the guilt card so much that it would have forced O.J Simpson into confessional murder. We were relentless, sneaking in every chance we had to verbalize our disappointment in him for not honouring an agreement. We just kept going at it with so much vigour, that if my words had to wear dresses, they would be Spartans.

Obviously I was pretty sure that DC was never going to cave because a bottle of Krug is close to $400 and I wasn’t sure if he actually had a bet with Yang or that Yang was just kidding about the whole issue, and DC wasn't someone who would admit losing. I just went on about the bottle because if someone else is paying for expensive champagne, then it sounds like a great idea already. I don’t care, really.

Then 20 minutes later, he snapped.

Me: “You know what we need?”
DC: “Shut up la! Order the bottle la!”

You know the feeling where you are so happy, but shocked at the same time that you cannot find words to express how you feel? That was entirely not the feeling that I was having. I was shocked because I didn’t think that anyone would be foolish enough to cave. And especially not DC.

The whole thing seemed like a TV commercial with the punchline at the end that says, “Peer Pressure: Exploiting stupid people always”, complete with a two thumbs up and a huge grin.

It was almost like a moral education snippet that taught me, persuasion works best in teams and with a lot of bugging. All it took was persistent teasing and edging from Yang, Hao and me, and that bagged us a $340 bottle of champagne. Sometimes I wonder if there’s really a need to work.

I wasn’t entirely keen on the champagne to begin with because I was still bearing the consequence of the previous night’s binge drinking session which ended at 5.30 in the morning and I was up at 9 for work. My stomach was queasy and I hardly had the appetite to digest a decent dinner, the last thing I needed was to be gulping bubbly.

Yang: “Dude, the best way to cure a hangover is to drink more.”

Two glasses of vodka Red Bull on.

Me: “Fuck you. I feel like fuck. My stomach is bloated and I can’t puke. But I can always puke because I’m that good at it. No like for real, if there was an Olympic sport for this, I would be your national hero. You would want to hug me. Not give me that look.”

Then we turned to the champagne that was chilling on the bar top. There sat the labour of less than an hour of taunting, or teasing, of just banking that somehow, humanity hasn’t smarten up fast enough to avoid the woes of peer pressure.

You got to love it.