Not being Irish myself (or if I am Irish, which is technically possible, then it's a negligible amount), I've always felt a little weird about investing too heavily in St. Patrick's Day. On the one hand, it's a holiday--and I am Catholic. On the other hand, nothing is more annoying that someone with maybe a thimbleful of Irish heritage who dresses all in green on St. Paddy's Day, runs around trying to pinch people who aren't in green, and finishes the night getting sloppy drunk on cheap beer. So in honor of the faux Irish, today I thought I'd count down the three worst drunks I've ever known--not worst in terms of consumption or their burgeoning alcoholism, but worst in the sense that they were a royal pain to hang out with when drinking. Here we go:
3.) McPoser. I went to a small Catholic college, which meant that about 1/2 the student body claimed some kind of Irish heritage. Of course, these were all clean-cut middle class white kids, so McPoser decided to create an identity for himself out of his Irishness. And, not being particularly tough, he was forced to rely on alcoholism (rather than fighting) as a way to establish his Irish cred. (I believe that his parents were accountants from an affluent suburb.) Sadly, this meant that most of the time not spent mooning after his increasingly impatient girlfriend was spent throwing up. This was capped by a particularly spectacular display one St. Patrick's Day, when he vomited Guinness all over the bar at our favorite Irish pub, more or less guaranteeing that nobody could go back there again during this lifetime.
2.) Drowsy. I envy guys. When you're a guy and your buddy makes a drunken ass out of himself in public, you get to leave him there. When you're a girl out with a drunken girlfriend, you have to shepherd her out of the bar, make sure she gets home ok, and find something to tie back her hair for the inevitable restroom sojourn. Once, I even woke up on a scratchy wool couch at a ski lodge miles from my college--where I had spent the night trying to use my sweater as a makeshift blanket because my friend wanted to hook up with some guy she met at a bar, and I got to be the one to go along and make sure that (if he turned out to be psycho) we could both get murdered instead of just her. I think it goes without saying that his mom is the one who found me the next morning then went on a tear through the house screaming about the fact that there were strange girls in the living room. Anyway, Drowsy makes the list due to her tendency to pass out in public after about 5 drinks. This meant that we were constantly pulling her out of booths and dragging/carrying her home. This, of course, culminated in the night that I had to crawl under the stall door of the filthiest restroom in Florence (in one of the clubs that catered to international students--which at the time meant that they played "Gangsta's Paradise" once every 20 minutes) so that I could retrieve Drowsy, who had somehow managed to pass out while on the toilet.
1.) DramaLlama. But the worst experiences belong to the time spent with DramaLlama, who enjoyed nothing so much as getting shit-faced and then pretending to try to kill herself. Obviously, she didn't actually want to kill herself. She just liked having a group of girls following her around, concerned about her safety and trying to "save" her while telling her about what a good person she is. It was a lot like those guys who pretend that they would fight you if there weren't a bunch of people holding him back. Thus, so long as there were plenty of people around to prevent her, she would get plastered and try to throw herself down staircases, out the window, etc., etc. Of course, after one night like this, I was ready to hold everyone else back and just let her jump.
Ok, I will attempt (albeit half-heartedly) to come to the defense of Budweiser and the other beers that are nearly indistinguishable from it (e.g. Coors, Miller, etc.). Granted they're not exactly what I would call delicious, but they're not bad, and in certain specific situations, they're exactly the right thing to drink. Those situations are:
1.) When you're buying for people who don't like beer that much and would be perfectly happy with Bud and slightly annoyed when you tried to explain why your local microbrew is superior.
2.) When you're eating vast amounts of spicy food, and need something slightly more interesting than water (but only slightly) to wash it down. (E.g. buffalo wings or Maryland-style crab feasts)
3.) When you've just finished mowing the lawn or doing a 10-mile hike. At that moment, nothing tastes better than a really cold, extremely light-bodied beer. (My dad calls them "lawn-mowing beers" and keeps a few MGDs around just for that purpose.)
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