Whenever I go to University Health Services, I always expect a wait.

On a campus of more than 40,000 students, one should expect the waiting room of the Ritenour Building to be crowded.

But to wait an hour and 15 minutes on a Saturday morning? I don't think too many people would expect that. I know I didn't.

Now, before you start to think this column is a rant about the service at UHS, please read on. I'm not complaining about that at all.

I'm complaining about the drunken injuries. And, yes, I was one of them.

When I hobbled into Ritenour one Saturday morning at the end of last semester -- and, mind you, I got there less than 15 minutes after it opened -- I could not believe how many other students were already sitting there, looking about as frustrated (and probably hung over) as I felt.

So, to kill time, and to avoid watching the awful crap on Country Music Television that for some reason was on the only TV in the room, I started talking to the other students around me about why they were there on a Saturday morning.

And little by little, I began to realize that many of them were in the same boat as me.

One girl took off her Ugg boot to reveal an ankle that was swollen at least five times as much as mine. She apparently had decided it would be fun to jump down half a flight of stairs.

One guy went to get his hand X-rayed and found out he had fractured it by picking a fistfight with a wall. Guess who'd won?

Another guy was covered in cuts and bruises, couldn't find his cell phone and had no recollection of the night before except that he had woken up in a bush that was not remotely near his or any of his friends' apartments.

OK, he was my roommate, and he was only at Ritenour because he was the one who drove me there, but still, it's a funny story.

Two more girls came in, within about 10 minutes of each other, with swollen ankles -- at this point I began to believe that all girls have weak ankles -- and promptly were put in wheelchairs and taken into an exam room, so we didn't even get to hear what happened to them.

No fun.

But I would bet that their stories were similar to mine: Drunk girl running in heels falls down and breaks her ankle.

Actually, mine just turned out to be a sprain. But you get the idea.

I'm sure that weekend at Ritenour was not an anomaly.

My guess is that the UHS staff sees drunken injuries all the time -- and that every Saturday morning, the waiting room is packed with some legitimately sick students.

But mostly students like the one who drunkenly thought she could stick that landing from six steps up, or run in heels while drunk even though she can barely walk in them while sober.

I'll admit these stories are funny.

I have even funnier ones of other occasions during my almost-four years at Penn State. (In case you were wondering, this was not my first Saturday morning at Ritenour.) But let's get serious for a second.

Yes, we are in college, and yes, we like to drink and party and have a good time.

But that good time shouldn't have to result in a broken limb or -- God forbid -- something much, much worse.

A hangover is punishment enough, isn't it?

Take it from me: For your own sake and for the sake of others around you that you might hurt, know your limits with alcohol.

Have fun at the party or the bar, but don't let it get to the point where you can't stay on your feet, or where you start fights with walls.

But just in case that does happen to you or a friend, always remember RICE: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. And lots and lots of ibuprofen.