The powerful and ancient ritual of round-buying in a pub is bound by the most commonly understood norms of behaviour.
Someone buys you a drink, you buy one back: Simple and uncomplicated.
![Sorry, did you say it was my round?](http://web.archive.org./web/20170710135531im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/l/2/l/b/z/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gx4e9f.png/1499395475739.jpg)
So why are so many pub-going "friends" not obeying the "Laws of the Round?"
I don't know if it's because the WA economy is a basket case, but I've noticed more and more the rise of the most despicable of all booze scrooges: the round-dodger.
Let's be honest, dipping out of rounds was probably invented by some miserable git about five minutes after Neolithic man accidently discovered hooch.
I get Perth is one of the most expensive places on the planet to buy a pint.
And stumping up enough cash for a night on the sauce usually involves taking part in medical experiments where your small toe is lasered off, then sewn back on the wrong way.
But observing the pub etiquette of round-buying is part of the building blocks of civilisation and society would crumble without them.
![Might be time to start drinking solo, if the art of drink-dodging continues.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170710135531im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/i/t/3/u/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gx4e9f.png/1499395475739.jpg)
The "rules" have changed ever so slightly since I was in my late 20s and early 30s when most of us were trying out for the Charles Bukowski drinking Olympics, but these most noble of all rules must be adhered to.
We would still be a single-celled amoeba sloshing about in some primordial sludge without these libation laws.
How would have the greatest moments in history played out if great military strategists were tightwads?
How different the Battle of Agincourt would have ended if Henry V buggered off to the loo when it was his shout?
"Look Henry, great speech and all mate, but me and the lads aren't that keen to close the wall up with our English dead, because well, you haven't brought an ale since Calais."
Now that rusted-on, sacred philosophy of "what comes around goes around" is being threatened by those sip swindling tight arses.
These lawless miscreants are again rolling out ancient round-dodging manoeuvres like "I'm on antibiotics" so I can't drink.
Yet, the same person who only moments before was scouring the pub for a priest to get his last rites, suddenly has a liking for Scotch brewed by nuns off the Isle of Skye when it's your round.
And the toilet dasher. He or she (usually a sufferer from irritable bowel syndrome) sits nursing the last remaining dregs of a drink like it's some spittle from Jesus himself, before vanishing to the dunny when it's their shout.
One of life's great and compelling absurdities when it comes to pussyfooting around buying pints, is "couple drinkers".
You know the one. You get a round for your mate and his partner (this is not gender specific) and for some God damn inexplicable reason (and even though it defies the law of physics) that counts as only one drink.
But the lowest of all round-dodgers is the "I left my wallet at home" person.
Anyone who rolls out that repulsive line should be made to eat those urinal cakes on crackers at the end of the night.
These artful dodgers need to be named and shamed and have a beer coaster stapled to their foreheads with the words "stinge drinker" written on it.
There are still a number of steadfast rules within the rules that one must abide by when it comes to shouting drinks.
Don't expect a reciprocal drink if you buy booze for a visiting Russian volleyball team, or a mate of a mate who is trying to sell you a pyramid scheme.
But as humans we must cherish and respect this unspoken traditional of round-buying, otherwise we are nothing more than savages.
Once a friend buys you a drink you automatically enter a binding booze contract that only Gandalf the Grey himself can release you from.
If we continue to practice the art of drink-dodging, Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of beer will wake up from her boozy slumber and rip your bloody arms off.
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