Don’t Embarass Yourself Or Saint Patrick!

Stuff White People Like: #89 Saint Patrick’s Day

A funny read from one of the internet’s most popular blogs right now. I wrote about it before – with satire it skewers mercilessly a certain subset of yuppies and consumerists.

I found this one extra entertaining for the experiences I have had in working in bars and restaurants on this holiday. My time in a Scottish Pub in Ohio was the worst. In March we played up the “pan-Celtic”… played down the Scots nationalism. To a green beer drinking demographic, I am not sure we didn’t “all look alike” (and while seeing double no less!)

If you want to be extra pretentious insist that Guinness not only tastes better in Ireland, point out that a real Irishman could “tell you what county they are in and how far they are from the brewery” based on the taste in the counties… (Yea, I have heard that blarney while working. I smile, I nod.)

From there you can point out the reason it tastes so much better in Ireland is because it is not pasteurized… Never-minding the health concerns, you should shake your head and bemoan corporations “ruining a good thing” by, you know, trying to prevent disease…. Also, since white people know what is best for you, point out with great sadness that the Irish have developed a fondness for Budweiser and, sadly, many have made it their beer of choice… (”Corporations have made them stop drinking the alcohol I associate with my stereotype, er ‘quaint ethnic image’”) (More smiling. More nodding.)

Today is also a good day to engage in really affected “Irish Whiskey Appreciation” and saying things like “Truly the best single malt Irish Whiskeys compete with any Scotch!” (as though your subjective opinion on what people like is somehow objectively definative… What can people say? “Is not!” “Are too!”)

I always found it doubly odd that a feastday and ties to an ethnicity can be used as a reason for getting obliterated. Wanton intoxication being what it is, and this being Holy Week, we do just as well to not add to our confessions this week “Bless me Father for I have sinned, I drank until Green Beer came out of my nose while people were cheering.”

Simple sinners understand sometimes it will happen that beer comes out of your nose…  Don’t make it your goal for pity sake!

Finally, as Catholic souls wearing bodies of any shade, with forebearers from any land, we might do just as well to not embarrass this poor saint… Maybe ask his intercession on driving some snakes out of our country, seeing to it some of his “revelers” don’t drive themselves home and converting a few pagans here.