Fish bowls… Pitchers… Fat Tuesday daiquiris…
One drink stands above the rest. One drink delivers on nights you won’t remember for prices you can’t forget.
Being a C.A.S.A. Bucket isn’t easy, but since 2013 we have been the premiere drink on Mill Ave – a 32 ounce glass of unabated freedom for only $9 (plus tip).
Conception for a Bucket is being mass produced in a factory, but our lives really begin with that first pour.
Buckets are filled for many reasons: 21st birthdays, a rough day or even just casual conversation among friends. We are told from our earliest days that we have been made to serve.
Functionally, our handles saddle us up for the long haul. Weaker drink receptacles fall at any sign of terror, but Buckets are made to hang on. We are made to be filled and filled again. Our drinkers usually fall before we do.
A Bucket can be filled many times or just once, but an old Bucketian proverb says, “It is not the number of fills that make you full, but the customers that you fulfill.”
Life after your first serving can be rough. The best of us are taken home as tokens of a fun night, and the worst are thrown wayside to become landfill fodder. The older Buckets say that if we serve our purpose, we can be reincarnated as tupperware, but no life can compare to being a Bucket.
Sitting behind the bar, we can see everything: the flirting, the awkward dancing and especially the lies you all tell yourselves about just buying one Bucket. It all changes after we are handed over. We put the customers at ease, acting as the liquid courage they need to step out of their comfort zone.
Without Buckets, Mill would be a somber place. Fewer patrons would drunkenly cross the streets to pump their fists in monotonic unison at Whiskey Row or stumble down the stairs to Low Key. It all starts at C.A.S.A., the night kicked off with the ordering of one’s first Bucket.
Our sense of self-importance is mitigated only by our short lifespans. The life of a Bucket is ephemeral but burns brightly in the minds of those who sip in our splendor.
There have been myths of a magical place where our images live on forever – a place where people say, “Buckets are my spirit animal,” or “Buckets are my life.” Here we are enshrined in legend.
As a Bucket from the High North (upstairs), my people see a lot less action than Buckets from the Umbrella Coast (outdoor area) or the Hall of Spilled Drinks (the dance floor), but we are a proud plastic. Those who venture up the cascading staircase are treated to quick service and heavy-handed pours.
It is my dream to become the Long Island Iced Tea of a scorned lover who ascended to the High North to brood over their lost love alongside a view of Mill Avenue. My father before me was a Long Island Iced Tea, and his father before him.
My brother was lost to the north when he became a vodka cranberry. He was spilled on a 21st birthday and now sits in the great hall, forever haunted by the uhn tiss uhn tiss that spelled his demise.
For a short period of time, a new breed of Buckets were brought to C.A.S.A. These Buckets were behemoths, 64 ounces of social descent. In concept, they were meant to be shared, but in practice, were used in flaunts of bravado. The stint of these giants was short-lived due to their ability to bring people too close to the void. Their power proving too strong, they have been locked away forever.
But, the life of a Bucket is not all flashing lights and impassioned late night chugs. We face many woes that other drinks cannot even fathom, but no proud Bucket would ever trade their 32-ounce existence of alcoholic affordability to be any other drink receptacle.
Except maybe I'd like to be a James Bond martini, I hear those guys really get to shake it up.
Reach the reporter at aalmouai@asu.edu or follow @zamurai_96 on Twitter.
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