Erin Go Braugh

So, it's St. Patrick's Day. This is a weird holiday. First off, St. Patrick. He's the saint that's credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland, but really he was a Roman emissary there trying to spread the Vatican's influence in the British Isles. So, the symbolism of him "driving the snakes from Ireland" is actually pretty offensive. See, the snakes are the dirty heathens that lived in Ireland, also known as Irish people.

And yet we celebrate the holiday as sort of Irish Pride Day. Now, I'd be fine with Irish Pride Day, and I know most Irish people are Catholics (it worked!), but the whole thing is still a little creepy. Ditto that whole St. Valentine thing. (How strange is it, by the way, that the day of the year we set aside to spend a romantic evening with our significant others is actually a religious holiday?)

I was actually kind of surprised today how many people came into the store actually dressed in green. I stopped even thinking about that after I was 12 years old. But some people still go for it. (Mercifully, no one showed up wearing an adorable button saying "Kiss Me I'm Irish" or anything). I used to do the wearing green thing as a kid, but not because I actually cared about Ireland. Only because I feared pinching. I still do, really. I just know better than to go anywhere that pinching remains a possibility.

Sometimes being a kid really sucks. Like on holidays where some behavior is mandatory. Also, for some reason, high school and collegiate-aged males have a bizarre ritual where someone is supposed to punch you in the arm repeatedly on your birthday. Seriously! It's to symbolize...well, nothing, really. It's to work out some bizarre male aggression. I choose to bottle this same aggression up and then unleash it in strange little blog rants about holidays, but other guys save up all that energy for birthday-themed punch sessions. I don't get it, really.

Just like I don't get St. Patrick's Day. See how I brought that first part back around, tying together this entire post thematically? That's how you know you're reading one of them real, professional-type blogs, and not some amateurish rambling piece of claptrap.