Posted by Jeff on 3/01/2008 12:31:00 AM

Last month, the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras took place within two days of each other, making it the most barf-tastic three-day stretch in recent memory.

Lord only knows how much alcohol was consumed and expelled during that magical time period. If Lindsey Lohan had anything to say about it, the answer is a lot.

"But wait!" you might be thinking. "What about this month? Isn't there anything to barf about in March?"

Actually, there's plenty to barf about this month. In fact, March might be the single barfiest month of the year, thanks to one internationally celebrated Irish holiday I like call "Throw Up Beer In The Back Of Your Friend's Car Day." Easter!

Just kidding. It's St. Patrick's Day. Or as Amy Winehouse likes to call it, Day.

So, why is St. Patrick's Day so throw up-y? Well, according to one reputable website, by which I mean Wikipedia, many American St. Patrick's Day celebrations center around "alcohol." And if it says it on Wikipedia, then you know it's true. Or that it's totally not true. You never know, which is part of why Wikipedia is awesome. It's like playing Russian roulette, only instead of bullets, you use facts.

For example, I looked up Tom Cruise on Wikipedia and couldn't find the words "creepy," "really creepy" or "super creepy" anywhere, so that shows you just how off it can be. I wonder if Wikipedia is where President Bush looked to see if Iraq had WMDs? Just a thought.

Anyway, the point is, a lot of people drink alcohol on St. Patrick's Day. As studies show, the abuse of alcohol can have some pretty horrifying consequences, such as hangovers, automobile accidents and voting for Mitt Romney. Who, according to Wikipedia, is made of 80 percent plastic. Then again, Wikipedia also claims that Romney has withdrawn from the presidential race. So there's an example of Wikipedia being right twice in a row.

But worse than any of these side effects, drinking can lead to barfing, which, according to several top scientists, sucks. And yet, no matter how many times they might learn this hard lesson first-hand, millions of Americans will once again end their St. Patrick's Day bowing down before the porcelain god. Calling Huey on the great white telephone. Mugging the porcelain tourist. Playing with the edible yo-yo. Giggling to Ralph over the porcelain intercom. Making a pavement pizza. Singing solo in the porcelain amphitheater. And other funny phrases I found online to boost my word count.

What makes it worse is that most people don't have the faintest idea what they're actually celebrating on St. Patrick's Day.

In fact, for a lot of people (Lindsey Lohan), St. Patrick's Day is distinguished from Mardi Gras only by the fact that the beer they're throwing up is green.

The real reason we celebrate is, of course, to commemorate the life and deeds of St. Patrick, who is famous for chasing all of the snakes out of Ireland, presumably by putting on a green plastic hat and throwing up Jell-O shots on them. This feat is all the more amazing when you consider the fact that Ireland never had any snakes to begin with. And that's an actual true, scientific, non-made-up fact. As opposed to this one: George Bush was forged in the fires of Mordor.

Which is a lie because, as Wikipedia points out, he was actually the one doing the forging.

I don't mean to give the impression that I did all of my research for this article on Wikipedia. That couldn't be further from the truth. I also did some research on pukeplanet.com, which is a website consisting entirely of pictures of people barfing. That's sort of bizarre in and of itself, but the truly remarkable part is how the website advertises itself as – and I swear this is true – "the best site for puke pictures on the web."

So if you've been less than satisfied with the puke-picture sites you've been frequenting lately, you know where to go.

Sometimes I think about St. Patrick's Day and all of the barfing and wonder how things got so out of hand. Like, 400 years ago it was a holy day of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland. Now it's a day when people go out to bars, drink their body weight in green-tinted domestic drafts and blarney all over each other's shoes. It's like the entire holiday has been secularized, which is a really, really sad thing. I mean, what would Santa say if he were here?

Yeah, sometimes I get down about St. Patrick's Day. But then I think about those tiny little men in the funny suits who are always hiding their gold – What do you call those again? Republicans? – and I smile.

At least next year we won't have one of those in the White House.

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