I hate St. Patrick's Day

My family couldn't be more Irish if-well, actually we could be a lot more Irish because we could have been born in Ireland-but by American standards we are pretty Irish. My father was practically born on the boat to Amerikay and we still have relatives in the-ahem-"old country." Which is why I hate this stupid day. I hate cabbage. I hate, hate, HATE soda bread. I can't stand Guinness (which, by the way, is now about as Irish as Nigerian ground nut stew). And I really, really hate the stupid way people act on St. Patrick's day. You know what? We aren't all Irish on St. Patrick's day, we are all retarded and drunk and annoying. It's like New Years Eve with twee pipe music, people who sound worse than Shane MacGowan shouting Pogues lyrics, and proving that there is such a thing as too much Van Morrison. The rest of the year I am proud of my Irish ancestry. I love Irish writers (Flann O'Brien most of all), Irish music, Irish men (thank you, Lord, for Colin Farrell and his greasy hair), and even some Irish food (mmm, trifle), but on this one day of the year I wish I was Latvian. Or Vietnamese. Or Peruvian. Anything but Irish.

Or, as Warren Ellis so eloquently put it in his daily email-
"If you want to celebrate St Pat's today, eat a raw potato, build a house out of peat and get yourself shot by an Englishman. And guess what? If you were born in America, you're not Irish, you're fucking American. Deal with it."