St. Paddy’s Fray

I contemplated writing a Do Dankes! about St. Patrick’s Day - and all things Irish. But after my ode to Trissi’s corned beef and cabbage, I was kind of over it. I just didn’t have that much to say.

Silly me - always putting the carriage before the horse (is that even the saying? hmm...doesn’t make sense...)

Then the holiday arrived. And now there is much to NO Dankes! about the drunkest drunkfest of the year.

About how green bagels and green beer are actually permissible foodstuffs. About how prices are unfairly jacked up to exorbitant amounts (case in point: Mr. Dennehy’s) simply because bars know we will pay. About how guys don kilts the right way - fully aware that tipsy girls will lift them up, thus exposing their manly parts, then complain when we do.

Over pints of Guinness and Harp and Magners, my friends and I wondered about the origins of this well-loved holiday: A day when everyone is Irish.

After Wiki-ing, I must say - I’m disappointed and fairly appalled that (Saint) Patrick was nada but a glorified missionary. He preached Christianity all over Ireland, coercing and converting people from their native pagan traditions (which were way cooler).

No wonder March 17th has become such a hot mess fest - with all that proselytizing, Patrick undoubtedly drove people to drink.

And boy oh boy do people drink.

St. Patrick’s Day, in my opinion, is the sloppiest day of the year. And we all know that along with alcohol so too comes drama. What starts in good fun ends in bad times. As my Nana used to say: Laughing leads to crying.

The more you drink, the more you pee - and when you’re a girl that’s un problemo. Come ON guys, be chivalrous. Share your line-free bathroom with us and quit yer bellyaching!

The crushing of toes and shoving of bodies is endless. Ceaseless. Hapless. Hopeless! I can’t even tell you how many times I was pushed - starting with a waitress at lunch. (I was fixing my scarf and the biotch batted my elbow out of the way with a glare/stare. EW!)

Bars become cattle cars. Sticky, stinky, sweaty bodies crammed in a space that’s 5,000 times too small. People become dominoes - one topple is all it takes for you to all fall down.

And bathrooms aren’t the only place for lines. They’re ubiquitous. It’s impossible to get a slice of pizza let alone a beer. Patience, as you well know, is not an exemplary quality of the inebriated. - so you get two drinks every time you go up. And you drink and drink and drink some more. But hey, it’s OK because everyone else is doing the same thing.

Where does all that double fisting lead? To fights. Fights, fights, fights, FIGHTS. What would a bar be without fights? What would St. Patrick’s Day be without drama? B-o-r-i-n-g I suppose. We had the lucky duck privilege of seeing two. And man, they were outrageous. The first in particular.

Some gross(sssss) dude with a cane (don’t be fooled into feeling bad for him like I first did), threw a bottle at a girls head. Really? REALLY? She flipped her shit, obvi, and started kicking his face. Yes, kicking his face with her feet. He hobbled up off his lazy ass and proceeded to slap her. Once, twice, again - till her man friend broke it up. She cried, he got the boot. It was totes ridic.

This dramarama drunkfest is not, I daresay, the celebration St. Patrick had in mind when he traipsed across the rolling green hills of Ireland converting peeps.

March 17th has become synonymous with superfluous libations-ness. With sheer sloppiness and far too many cases of “Irish Flu” the following morning. With people partaking in one too many brews, then puking on the sidewalk (or in my apartment building entrance, as evidenced here - sorry guys).

I don’t know where this blog is going. Perhaps my brain is a still fried from too many Harps.

But I do know I’ll be making the rounds at Irish pubs next year - and that I don’t agree with Fr. Vincent Twomey and his desire to “…reclaim St Patrick's Day as a church festival.” All I ask is that you simply tone it down a bit, people.

(Like that will ever, ever happen.)