AH, Good 'Ol St. Patrick's Day.

Birthdays remind me of my seventh birthday, when my mother brought me to the store to pick out a toy, but since I took more than four seconds to pick one out she said fuck it, and let Brothatime!! pick out a Tonka truck for himself (on MY birthday!), and the NCAA Tournament reminds me of 8th Grade, when my Dad tried to motivate me to get good grades by signing me up for Ralph Sampson's basketball camp later that summer, and of course my inevitable shitty grades allowed Brothatime!! to be be sent in my place.

But St. Patrick's Day?  St. Patrick's Day reminds me of that one magic moment in time, when my insistence on being a lazy-ass, do-nothing shithead ended up with me getting the reward anyway.

When I was a kid my dad always tried to make a big deal out of us being Irish (the only ones in town), but who gives a shit what your dad says when you’re young? Certainly not me. When we got a little older my dad came up with the idea that on St. Patrick’s Day, he would administer a quiz to my brother and me on the history of Irish saints; the winner would get a pizza from TA-DA! Roma’s. A week or so before the 17th he’d give us some big, over-the-top dry book to read on the subject. My brother would actually read it; I’d get to page 3 and then start wondering if I’d rather be in Def Leppard or Duran Duran (trick question – I’d be better off being a dead Irish saint.) So guess who would win the “competition”? But the thing is, I’d still get the pizza – the pizza would come, and I’d hafta toast to Brothatime!!’s Irish brilliance, but I’d do it with a mouthful of cheese and grease on my face. To this day, I live by that creed: "I will not read for pizza."

Ha!  Fuck yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!