A Guide to St. Patrick’s Day
By Luis Prada
So it’s St. Patrick’s Day. A holiday in which we celebrate…something. No one is entirely sure what this day is all about, but it’s the day that people raise 1 or 47 glasses of beer to honor a man that probably invented beer. Or something.
Sure, we can easily look up what the day’s all about, but that would require us to put down our frothy glass of Guinness and type something, then, after all that work, have to read and retain some knowledge. Being drunk is not conducive to learning. We learned that when we were kids.
So seeing as this day really means nothing more to most people than an excuse to drink themselves in to a vomit fit just so they can experience the thrill of watching a bunch of dark green chunky shit fly out of their mouths, we’re going to give you guys some tips and tricks on how to enjoy this lovely holiday, and how to make sure will wake up tomorrow morning with no recollection of any of the terrible sins you’ve committed.
1) Start Early – Have you ever watched No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain? First off, that show’s awesome. Second off, in the episode where he went to Ireland, the guy had a Guinness with pretty much every meal. Breakfast, lunch, dinner – it didn’t matter. As long as there was food in front of him, there was a Guinness. We implore you to do the same, but with a slight modification. I just squinted my eyes long enough to make the world stop spinning for a second so I could read the nutritional facts on a can of Guinness. Did you know that one 16-Oz can has more calories than a slice of bread? Well, it does. The average slice of bread has 120 calories, where a Guinness has 125 calories per can. The conclusion I’ve reached is simple: replace all of your meals with a Guinness or five. If one can equals a slice of bread +5, then you can very easily delude yourself in to thinking that every can is like a meal – kind of like a protein shake, but without the protein and with about 1000% more drunk. This will also prevent vomiting later as simple logic dictates that you can’t puke up food that isn’t there.
2) Drop All Responsibilities – Yeah, we all know that if it’s St. Patty’s day, all obligations to your office work gets tossed out the window along with your office computer that you will no doubt toss out the window in a drunken rage while protesting the lack of beer in your system. So it goes without saying that anything you are responsible for in your daily life must be put on hold for this one day. This not only includes menial tasks like taking out the garbage or feeding your kids. This also extends to ignoring your kids, and open container laws. Remember, make sure you always drive with an open container that’s feeding your belly with a nice, steady stream of future A.A. meetings.
3) Get Belligerent – On St. Patty’s day, everyone is Irish. There’s no better way to celebrate this idea than by acting out in the way we all have stereotyped the Irish. So get pissed. Get angry. Start some fights. Urinate on a human face. Dance a jig. Dance a jig on a human face that someone else has urinated on. These things and more are what being Irish is all about. That and talking like a race of magical woodland creatures that will grant you wishes if you answer their riddles three.
4) Carry The Wrong Flag – So, let’s say that you’re not in to the whole “everyone is Irish today!” thing. You think that you being a Mexican, or an Italian is something to be proud of. But, you understand that on this day, being anything else other than Irish will get your assed kicked by a 6-foot tall Bulgarian that claims to be Irish and, when questioned about it, holds up a mug of beer as proof of nationality. A nice little work around for this stems from the total unoriginality that went in to the creation of some national flags. For instance, which of these two is the flag of Ireland, and which is the flag of Italy?
See? Same shit. And how about Mexico?
Yeah, real original, Mexico. Just because you drive a Trans Am like every other douchebag out there, doesn’t mean you’re making yours totally badass and original by painting an eagle on it.
