With a Little Luck...

 

Hello, Dear Readers.  It’s good to see you.

A couple of days ago, I was listening to a song called “Hooligan’s Holiday,” and it reminded me that St. Patrick’s Day is coming right up.  Now, I have to admit that I’ve never had any great feeling for St. Patrick’s Day.  When I was a kid, all it meant was that you had to wear a green shirt to school or all the other kids would pinch you.  In fact, some of them would walk right up and slap you.  And to me, an entire day devoted to avoiding bodily harm just isn’t much of a holiday, especially if you’re not even Irish.

Of course, when I got into college, St. Patrick’s Day was more of a “drink-at-will” kind of thing.  It was perfectly fine to be drunk at ten o’clock in the morning on that day.  But then again, it was college.  It was pretty much OK to be drunk by ten o’clock in the morning on any day.  So, it’s not like St. Patrick’s was all that big a thing.

After I graduated and got my first professional job, St. Patrick’s became one of those holidays whose hype kind of outweighed its reality.  It was fun, of course, to think about going out to a bar with your co-workers and having a few beers, but the problem was that most of time, St. Patrick’s occurred on a weekday.  So that meant that you’d be sitting at your desk paying for that night out all the next day. 

You could always call in sick, but it doesn’t take a genius employer to figure out that anyone who calls in sick on the day after St. Patrick’s Day isn’t really sick.  I mean, you can make up a good excuse like you have an ear infection or something, but trust me, it won’t work.  Even if you actually have an ear infection. 

And sure, you could just try being honest about it.  I did that once, actually.  I was working for a guy I’d known since graduate school, and I’d been out partying the night before.  So, I just called in and said that I was too hung over to come to work.  I thought he was going to fire me on the spot.  The next thing I knew, I was just blathering out a veritable smorgasbord of more reputable symptoms and illnesses: “Did I say I was hung over?  I’m sorry, I meant to say that I’ve got an ear infection…and a worrisome growth on my arm…and I can’t see out of my left eye…and I was bitten by a rabid dog.”  And, OK, I just threw the rabies thing in at the end out of sheer desperation, but I personally think it’s what ultimately saved my job.  I mean, no one is going to take the chance of making someone who might have rabies come to work.  At any rate, I learned an important lesson from the experience:  the truth is a powerful thing.  Don’t use it unless you have to.

These days, I think I’ve reached a point where drinking just takes more effort than I want to put into it.  I mean, if I go out, I have to put on clean clothes and iron a shirt.  I have to make sure I’m wearing matching socks…or that I’m wearing socks at all.  I have to go to the ATM and get some money.  And since I’m at an age where the letters “DUI” actually mean something to me, I have to figure out how I’m going to get to and from the bar.  And considering that I can’t be bothered on most days to go check my mailbox in the entryway downstairs, going out to a bar is a project somewhat akin to climbing Mount Everest for me.  Just thinking about it is making me want to go lie down for a while.

But beyond that, I think I don’t go out on St. Patrick’s Day because of leprechauns.  I don’t find them scary in quite the same way that I find Cupid terrifying, largely because they don’t seem as prone to physical violence and can’t fly, but leprechauns are just confusing.  And given that I take my cue on how to celebrate holidays based on what their holiday characters do, that kind of confusion is not a good thing.

I mean, leprechauns aren’t jolly.  And jolliness is kind of important in a holiday character.  Think about what Christmas would be like if Santa was just some crabby old crank.  He’d come tumbling down your chimney, throw some presents at your tree, and complain about the cookies you left for him.  He’d probably give your presents a good, swift kick before he left, spit on your stockings before he climbed back out, and pry a couple of shingles off your roof just for good measure before he took off.  Luckily that isn’t what happens, but it points out just how important Santa’s general level of jolliness actually is.  If he wasn’t jolly, he’s just be a fat guy on a rampage breaking into your house.

But leprechauns aren’t jolly or even particularly friendly.  They’re solitary woodland fairy-people.  They hang out in the forest and make shoes.  They don’t want to know where you live, and they don’t want you to know where they live.  They don’t want to come to your house, and they don’t want you coming to their houses.  They don’t even like to hang out with each other.  So what’s that supposed to tell us about celebrating St. Patrick’s Day?  That it’s best if you just spend it at home drinking by yourself and resoling your loafers?

And leprechauns also aren’t proactive, and that’s actually a bigger deal in a holiday character than you’d think.  I mean, Halloween witches aren’t exactly friendly, but they’re decisive.  They’re going to seek you out and scare the crap out of you.  That’s their deal.  They take action.  And the Easter Bunny doesn’t wait around for people to ask for a basket of candy.  You don’t have to put in a request or send a letter.  He just brings you an Easter basket.  Even if you’re diabetic…or Jewish.  Witches, the Easter Bunny—these are not holiday characters who wait around waiting for something to happen.  They spring into action.  They provide guidance for people like me.

But leprechauns spend most of their time running away from people.  They have no plan for you.  They don’t even want to know you.  So, what’s the message here?  That beyond sitting on your couch drinking alone and fixing your shoes, you should also refuse to answer the phone?  If someone comes to your door, you should hide in the closet?  What kind of a holiday is that? 

And don’t even try to kid yourself into believing that leprechauns are on your side.  They aren’t.  They don’t give a rip about your happiness or well-being.  I mean, Santa wants you to be nice, and he’s willing to bribe you with presents for it.  The Pilgrims want you to be thankful, and they’re willing to feed you to get that.  The Easter Bunny wants you to eat candy, so he brings you some candy.  And Cupid wants you to fall in love, so he shoots you in the chest to get you there. 

But leprechauns just want you to leave them alone. They aren’t going to search you out.  They don’t want to give you their secret pots of gold.  They already don’t like you, and they’re not trying to hide it.  They’re not really against you (because that would involve being pro-active), but make no mistake—they’re not for you, either.  They really have no investment in you at all. They just don’t want you to steal their pots of gold.  So, if you take your cue from the leprechauns, you just spend St. Patrick’s Day at home alone, drinking, putting new soles on your shoes, fearing that you’re going to get robbed, and alternately hiding from the phone and your own front door.

All in all, I think that if you follow the leprechauns’ example, you’re going to have a pretty crappy St. Patrick’s Day.  But luckily, most people don’t follow the leprechauns.  Most people go out and get drunk with total strangers.  They’re very social.  And they don’t worry about losing their pots of gold.  In fact, many people lose their wallets and car keys at some point during the drunken revelry and don’t even notice.  And people don’t hide when the phone rings.  I mean, if you’ve had enough to drink, you’ll randomly answer someone else’s phone, and the only reason you’ll hang out in a closet is if someone else is in there with you.

When you really think about it, most people do the exact opposite of what the leprechauns do on St. Patrick’s Day.  And maybe that’s the point.  I mean, if you look at the history of Ireland, the list of other countries and groups that have had a boot on the neck of the Irish people is long and distinguished.  And yet the Irish themselves just refuse to be squished.  They just keep getting back up, and there’s really something admirable about that.  Maybe not following the leprechauns is what the holiday is really about.  So, maybe this year I’ll break with my own slugabed tradition, iron my favorite green shirt, and go out for a beer.  After all, there is a saying that on St. Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish.  And, you know, there just may be something to that.

Philosophy for a hungry planet.

Enjoy.

© R. Rissler, 2011.  All rights reserved.