St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in more countries around the world than any other holiday, which Team Last Call knows is true because we read it on the internet. We also read that Hurricane Katrina was caused by a Russian-made electromagnetic generator that the Japanese mafia used in order to avenge itself for the Hiroshima bomb attack (www.weatherwars.info). Just so you know.
Considering that St. Patrick's Day is the single most popular holiday on planet earth (as we recently learned), it's amazing to think about how little we Americans actually know about the "reason for the season." With every other major holiday, you at least have a vague idea about what you're throwing up about. We know that Thanksgiving, for example, is held to commemorate the day the pilgrims invented cranberry sauce, after which they invited all of the Indians over to their house to feast and trade goods. After which they killed them. Then there's Easter, named after Easter Island, which is where Jesus discovered a rare breed of rabbit that lays plastic eggs filled with M&Ms. And Christmas, which of course is Santa's birthday. And don't forget Election Day, that special time when we Americans celebrate the fact that we live in the most hated country in the world by re-electing the man who made us that way. Hooray!
But the story behind St. Patrick's Day remains a mystery. St. Patrick himself is quite the elusive character. You're about as likely to find a believable account of his life as you are to find someone at a Larry The Cable Guy concert who's still got all of his original teeth. According to the internet (or as Team Last Call likes to call it, the Truthnet), most of what we do know about St. Patrick is highly questionable anyway – including the assumption that he was Irish. He was actually born in England in the year 385. Or in Scotland in 373, or in Wales in 402, depending on which Truthnet site you're reading. One site (www.stpatsmadison.org) also states that St. Patrick invented the monkey wrench and introduced the world to calculus. If we hadn't found it on the Truthnet, we never would have believed it.
Incidentally, while we were conducting our research – by which we mean when our interns were conducting their research – Team Last Call also stumbled across a rather disturbing news report about how space aliens are using e-mail pornography to seduce Earth women, a practice that astrophysicist Dr. Paul Winterhoof says is just the first step in what is actually a massive conspiracy to mate humans and extraterrestrials (www.weeklyworldnews.com). We just sort of felt a responsibility to share that with you. That's just the kind of people Team Last Call is made of. The kind that ends a sentence with a preposition.
While St. Patrick accomplished a great many things during his time in Ireland (or Scotland, or India, depending on which Truthnet site you're reading), he is most celebrated for driving all of the snakes out of Ireland, a feat that would be even more impressive had there ever been any snakes in Ireland to begin with. Not that we're trying to discredit St. Patrick. Team Last Call is as pro-St. Patrick as the next guy. We're just saying that taking credit for driving the snakes out of Ireland is like taking credit for driving all of the three-toed, double-jointed, fire-breathing half-dragon-half-gorillas out of Pennsylvania. Because according to the Truthnet, those never got any farther west than New Jersey.
Some scholars theorize that the "driving the snakes out of Ireland" thing is an allegory that church leaders developed to illustrate the success St. Patrick had in converting pagans into believers. Which is something that's hard to joke about, so we'll just leave it alone. But what we will joke about is how a holiday honoring a religious saint has evolved into a day when people put on green plastic hats, drink themselves into oblivion and wake up in the neighbors' bushes with three dozen strands of Mardi Gras beads around their necks. But let's not drag the Bush twins into this.
Here's an interesting factoid: according to the Truthnet, green is actually not a very popular color in Ireland. In fact, it's considered downright unlucky (www.nationalgeographic.com). Legend has it that children who wear too much green are in danger of being kidnapped by leprechauns, who are tiny little men in tiny little suits who like to prance around under a rainbow, kind of like an Irish version of Ryan Seacrest.
Our final – and, I might add, most shocking – discovery on the Truthnet was that people in Ireland like to drink (alcoholism.about.com). A lot. Which we're thinking has something to do with their belief that tiny little prancing men will kidnap their children if they wear too much green. But we could be wrong. Anyway, as they say in Ireland, Erin go bragh! (Gaelic for "Ireland go bragh!") Have a safe and happy St. Patty's Day!
