All I want for semester break is my two front teeth.

Yes, it's true; as of last Thursday night my pearly whites count is down two. You can blame it on a set of slippery porch steps and an expanse of rock-hard cement sidewalk, where I experienced a slight mishap involving a BMX bike and a fleeting lack of good judgment.

And I guess you could label the incident as alcohol related, because I was slightly under the influence, to say the least.

I'll never get my real teeth back, but thanks to modern medicine, in six months I'll have sturdy implants that will look, feel and function just as well as my natural ones.

I got lucky. The outcome could have been much worse.

At the risk of stating the obvious, alcohol-related injuries are all too common on college campuses, especially Penn State's.

Oftentimes, these injuries are good for a laugh the morning after.

That is of course despite the pain that is creeping slowly back to your fractured tibia as the eight vodka shots from the night before wears off.

"Dude, I can't believe you were so trashed you ran straight into a brick wall and then jumped out of a second story window."

"Yeah, I know. Isn't that hilarious? Though my face kind of hurts. And I don't think my leg is supposed to bend that way."

I'm not making this one up - someone really did this.

We've all been there, and we've all laughed at our stupid, unfortunate friends, even though the kid with the broken nose or cheekbone is silently weeping from the throbbing pain. (Unless he's lucky, and he's still drunk enough not to feel it.)

"Battle scars" are a conventional after-effect of a long night of boozing.

The next day at brunch, everyone loves taking turns showcasing their injuries.

Students display their black-and-blue elbows, scraped knees, dog bites and even broken bones.

The obsession has even taken over Facebook.com, as hundreds of students join groups like, "I Wake Up With Random Bruises," "Drunken Injuries," and the appropriate, "Support group for those With Drunken Injuries to the Face."

Meanwhile, groups like, "Party Responsibly," lack sufficient membership and can't match for popularity.

However, these few know that some drunken injuries are not all smiles, no pun intended.

As I've said before, I got lucky.

Two teeth are replaceable. Others who drink are not so fortunate. Alcohol abuse can not only lead to self-inflicted injury, it can be fatal. DUI's, alcohol poisoning and violent crimes can just as easily result from drinking as falling on your face can.

Like Saturday night, when an allegedly drunk Penn State student struck another student and a visitor on the corner of Atherton Street and Beaver Avenue. The student, Aaron Stidd, is in critical condition, and the visitor, Richard Smith, died.

Coincidentally, this accident occurred right outside of my apartment.

So, as I was taking my medicine and doing my nightly salt-water rinsing routine to care for my oral wounds, I could see from the window of my building the police covering up the body on the street.

I am lucky to be alive, that Halloween was around the corner and that my friends have as a good a sense of humor as I, because we dressed one night as a white trash family, and the second night as kids-on-a-rope. I admit that I made an excellent redneck and a believable eight year old, if only because of the natural advantage my injury provided me.

Sure, having this type of injury has it's benefits. It's a good time to profess your badass tendency to fight, scream or bleed while drinking.

I laughed off my teeth mishap, because there's no way I can take it back - I can only take care of myself in the meantime and pretend like I did it on purpose to make my costume that much cooler.

But the visitor who died, the kids who fall from six-story windows, the boys who beat each other to bloody pulps and the poor inebriated soul who falls asleep under a bush in winter and freezes to death, aren't laughing with us.

It appears to me that, from observation of my injury and from the serious injuries and deaths of others, drinking is fun until someone gets hurt.

If the injury isn't severe, then it's still fun and we can keep drinking.

But if it is serious, then it's not.

Maybe we should be re-thinking this mantra. After all, 12 beers deep and there's no way for you to control exactly how serious the damage will be.

And even if the injury isn't too severe, like losing your two front teeth, it can be almost as costly.

Believe me, a dental implant is just like a DUI - you can't afford it.