St. Patrick’s Day is here again. I am not overly excited. By way of background, understand that I’m not even a little bit Irish. So truthfully I have never felt much more than a twinge for St. Patrick’s Day, if you don’t count the one year in Junior High when I dressed entirely in green to try to impress a crush object of Irish descent. (Apparently this did not sufficiently compensate for my lack of breasts.) I’m sure I enjoyed the holiday in college, when I was probably happy to have another excuse to drink beer. Which brings me to my point.
St. Patrick’s Day is a joyous, celebratory holiday involving kid-friendly things like leprechauns and four leaf clovers. It also, for better or for worse, seems to involve a great deal of drinking. I live in New York City, where there is a large Irish population, and a lot of people who are happy to drink with the Irish population. St. Patrick’s Day in New York generally seems to involve either drinking or dodging drunk people. Which was all fine when I was just an independent adult choosing not to inebriate myself at this particular time.