Fuck St. Patrick's Day

Anyone who is wearing green today is either a suburbanite, frat boy, or ridiculously drunk girl.
It all started this morning...

I had to go home last night for an optometrist appointment this morning. I had to sign some form, and I asked what the date was. The receptionist replied after a pause:
"It's the seventeenth. St. Patrick's Day."
The way she said it, she may as well have added "Dumb-ass" at the end.

In Chicago, it's been St. Paddy's day for well over a week, and I had my fair share of all things Irish and this stupid gig the A Cappella choir had to do last Sunday. Ireland On Parade. It was going to be its own blog entry, but I didn't really have the time or energy to rant about it. It was a joke, to say the least.

Anyway, I took the train back up to Chicago this afternoon, and everyone who got on, even the cute little Indian lady with the video camera was wearing green or a shamrock. Ass-hole losers who I remember seeing in the halls of my high school were there, getting ready for their night on the town. There was a man sitting across from me, and even with my headphones on, I could not help but listen to his inane stories of getting drunk with buddies and getting kicked out of bars. I wanted to hand him an AA card.

The El ride back was worse. People were crammed on the Brown Line, and fumbling around trying to keep their balance because they aren't used to the El's jolting pick-up. Again, they were all wearing GREEN!

I almost lost it though when this creep guy (strangely not wearing any green, but did have some clear plastic shamrock Guinness thing) started inching closer to my seat and struck up a conversation about cameras to the people standing next to me. What he said made no sense, and then he tried to hand out some sheet of paper that promoted relations counseling. After living in the city for almost two years, I've learned now NOT to take flyers from strangers. I can't really describe why I was freaked out about him that made me want to scream. Maybe it was his glazed eyes and slack-jawed smile.
I know!!! He looked like a real life Stuart Smalley!
Yes. That's him alright...

I just don't get the holiday, that's all. I don't mean to shit on anyone's parade day. I don't think there's any Irish heritage in my family, and if there is, it's minuscule. I don't like to get wasted. I don't like March. I don't like mass crowds of people (except if it's Chinese New Year). I like green, but not if frat boys wear it. And there's just one more thing I want to say about St. Patrick's Day: White people look stupid in bright green anything. It's like St. Paddy's day is the day when you can not only get as drunk as you want, but also look as stupid.

Next year, I think I'll take a mini-vaca out of the city to avoid all this madness.