Post St. Patrick's Day

So inasmuch as my last name is decidedly Irish (and unpronounceably so), I had everybody and his cousin coming up to me yesterday and the day before, wanting to know what I was going to do to celebrate. "I mean, dude, I'm not Irish--"--this was the general sentiment--"--and I'm gonna get so fucking wasted, I may go permanently blind. So you must be going to go seriously insane, am I right?" No, no you're not. Irish people don't really act any different on March 17th as they do on any other day. We get drunk, but no drunker than usual--it was a Friday night, so I guarantee you that the Irish populations of Chicago, Boston, New York, et al. went out and got good and properly s***-faced, but they did the same thing last week, and they'll do the same thing next week. It's just not that big of a deal with us. Yeah, yeah, yeah--we're Irish, and today, for one day, that's cool. Tomorrow we'll go back to being bog-trotters, potato-eaters, poetic drunks. BFD. It's mostly a day for grade-school children to physically abuse their peers for not wearing green, and for the makers of green dye to poison alcoholics across the nation by forcing them to choke down gallons of their product in cheap beer. Not a great, great day for Our People, is what I'm saying. Being proud of being Irish is like being proud of being tall--you had nothing to do with it--and anyway, these days, it's really no scandal to be a Mick--the days of No Irish Need Apply signs are long gone--now we're corrupt police officials and alderman, and rule over our own corners of the metropolis with the iron fisted brutality that was once wielded against us. Progress! So. Go out on St. Paddy's Day--get drunk, get into a fight, go home and abuse the wife and kids. But remember, it's not "tradition"--it's just Friday.