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RYAN: The excitement, the anticipation, the glitz, the glamor: it’s easy to see why literally millions of people each year gather around to catch a mere glimpse of the New Year’s Ball Drop. It’s a time-honored tradition that launched the career of Dick Clark all those decades ago. The ball may change each year—it gets bigger and more shiny—but its magical journey into a new year is always the same. For when the ball slowly begins its descent, it becomes a symbol of hope for all those who gaze upon it. It represents a whole new year where anything is possible. True love can be found. Promotions can be had. Money can be earned. Friends can be made. Resolutions can be kept. While most, if not all, of those things will undoubtedly not come to fruition, for those few seconds, everyone truly hopes and believes they’ll come true. And if Shawshank Redemption taught me anything (besides to always look at a man’s shoes), it’s that hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things.

SHAWN: Hope may be good, but I can think of something better—naked ladies. And those naked ladies mean very little to a young man until the most important time of his life and that would be puberty. Another time-honored tradition that launched the career of Dick Clark, puberty is when a boy becomes a man and, as we all know, men run the world. In other words, puberty is the most important event in the world. Like New Year’s, it involves the slow descent of a ball—two, in fact, if you’re not Ryan—that eventually drop and signal hope for all that gaze on it. They also get bigger and more shiny until that most-important moment, but the thing that really makes puberty better than the New Year’s Ball Drop is that it’s more than a moment. Hell, some suggest puberty lasts well into a man’s 90s, and I won’t disagree. For the rest of a man’s life, he can enjoy the sweet sound and feel (especially the feel) of sexuality, Shawshank Redemption-related or not. Anything is possible when a man reaches puberty, and it all actually happens. All those possibilities that come with the Ball Drop—resolutions, money, promotions, hope—die about two weeks in when the local gym clears out once more and life returns to normal. Luckily, thanks to puberty, we have a Dick to help us through it all—and I’m not talking Clark.

Awww, yeah, this New Year's just got rockin'.

RYAN: Puberty can hardly be considered the most important time in anyone’s life. Unless by important, you mean horribly awkward time plagued by bad acne, a cracking voice, and random erections. Nobody enjoys going through puberty. They just want it to be over with so they can move on with the next phase of their lives. Unfortunately, puberty isn’t an overnight process. It’s painfully long, lasting years, if not decades. Worst of all, there’s no choice in the matter. Everyone has to go through puberty. Like it or not. The New Year’s Ball Drop, however, is something people want to go to. And for good reason, too. It is, after all, a well-orchestrated party planned down to the very second. Crowds of people gathered around. Plenty of celebrities. Live music being played by some of the hottest stars. The promise of sexual activity lurking in the air. And the hope of what will come with a the new year. Will things pan out the way people want in the new year? Probably not, but It doesn’t matter what happens after that ball drops in Times Square. All that matters is for that brief period of time, there are no worries or problems. With the New Year’s Ball Drop, everyone is living in the moment and carefree. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum lies puberty, where everyone is self-conscious and worried.

SHAWN: First of all, not everyone had a puberty plagued by every stereotype in the book. Did you also work at Burger King, stutter in front of cheerleaders, and have an uncomfortably deep conversation with the jock while locked in the school for Saturday detention? And we both know that random erections don’t stop after puberty, especially with all the sexy ads on TV these days (Snap and Crackle, I think I just found Pop). Just shove a book in front of it and you’re good. And, even if there were one or two awkward moments in every pubescent boy, the end result is too great to pass up. Sure, we could all pass on puberty, but then we’d have to rule out sex forever. Is that what you want? Yeah, even you say half of the fun of the New Year’s Ball Drop is “the promise of sexual activity”—you know, the very thing that would never even occur if not for puberty. Now let me ask this: without the New Year’s Ball Drop, where would we be? Oh, look at that, nowhere different. Maybe we’d all be stuck watching some other New Year’s countdown—what a shame. Plus, unless you’re in New York City, that Ball Drop is only for babies and the elderly—no one in the middle gives a flying fuck. Last I heard too, you weren’t going to NYC this New Year’s, so which one are you—baby or elderly?

Two soft splashes immediately followed.

RYAN: Last I checked you weren’t going to NYC this New Year’s either, so what does that make you? And where do you get off criticizing what I did during puberty? Evidently in all those books you fucked with your random erections during your puberty. That’s sick, Shawn. Seriously. I’m scared to even ask if they were library books. There’s probably some little boy out there who never found out if the Little Engine That Could actually did because those last pages were stuck together. Just to clarify, are you really arguing puberty is great because of what happens when it’s over? Interesting point that makes absolutely no sense. You can have a shitty flight out to California, and when you finally land, that flight is still going to be just as shitty. That’s what puberty is. A shitty trip to somewhere kinda cool. There’s nothing shitty about the New Year’s Ball Drop. Despite what my book-fucking colleague said, it’s not for the elderly and babies, as we all know they can never stay up late enough to actually see it. Sure, you can watch it later if you really want to, but it’s not the same. The New Year’s Ball Drop is all about the experience. Gathering with a bunch of strangers who for just one night are your best friends. Everyone is there for the same reason and excited about the same thing. The New Year’s Ball Drop brings people together. Puberty, with all its raging and debilitating hormones, drives people apart.

SHAWN: Since I’m not going to NYC, what does that make me, you ask? That makes me someone who doesn’t watch the stupid Ball Drop! That’s the point, Hawking! You obviously do understand that the Ball Drop is for children, elderly, and elderly children—as apparently you think the Ball Drop is only fun if you’re in New York—so I won’t drill that point into your vagina any deeper. Plus, how can you say a flight to California was shitty when it got you to California? If you can’t get to the end without the means, well hot shot, the means are pretty damn important. And it sounds like this wasn’t the case for you, but during puberty naked ladies were just as great and my dong got just as much action (albeit by my pal Righty) as it does now—nothing wrong with that. Clearly, you’ve never been to a Ball Drop or you’d know that not everyone is there for the same thing. Many are there to pick the pockets of distracted tourists or to find a good young lass to slip a roofie too. Meanwhile, people around the world are having their own New Year’s parties—because they have actual friends that aren’t strangers—and laughing, partying, and kissing someone they know doesn’t have mono at midnight. Oh, yeah, funny you forgot to mention the kissing at midnight—probably because your hatred of puberty left you sexless and sterile. And, for the record, the Little Engine did. And he did HARD.

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