Fake Patty's Day

I love being an Irish-American. I feel closer to my Irish heritage than any of the other "origins" in my bloodlines. Ireland is a land of rich culture, fantastic people, compelling stories, and mystical mythology. It has born some of the world's greatest authors, artists, engineers, pastors, innovators and inventors. The Irish have mixed music and passion to create some of the world's most beautiful music.

I am also proud of my alma mater, Kansas State University. I believe that Kansas State students are some of the hardest working and most brilliant minds available. I believe that the faculty and administration at Kansas State University works hard to maintain a valued, safe, and inspiring community for its students to grow. It is with pride that I announce I am a Kansas State University Graduate.

Lastly, I love Manhattan, KS. It is a beautiful place to live. It provides the excitement of a college town, and the feel of a small town community. It is at the edge of the Flint Hills and home to the Konza Prairie, a special piece of God's beauty. It is a town I could live in for the rest of my life...if such a thing is possible for me.

HOWEVER

When my town Manhattan mixes my Irish heritage and my Kansas State University students, mixes it up with cheap, skeezy beer and a day or drunken revelry and has the gall to call it Fake Patty's Day.....grrrr.

Fake Patty's Day, when the town smells of beer and vomit by sundown. Where idiots who have been drinking from 8am on decide around 3pm the best way to spend their time is to play chicken with oncoming traffic. When thousands of supposedly academic collegiates leave their homes to trash their bodies and the streets of this fair city.

Tomorrow morning there will be so many headaches in this town that stock in Tylenol will be worth 2 points more on Monday. Aggieville will look like the trash removal services in town got lazy and dumped their trucks in the streets. People will be waking up in houses they have never seen before, and many will be waking up in a cell, trying to remember which antic got them there.

I am all for drinking. I am all for celebrating Saint Patrick's day with a fine Irish beverage.

But creating a day that excuses people from acting with any sort of self control or decency in order to make a buck (because as we all know, on Saint Patrick's Day our student body will mostly be out in the world breaking in Spring), that is not working for me.

Using this day as an excuse to drink oneself into a stupor and yell obsenities to all passers-by....also not cool.

Fake Patty's Day, how I loathe thee.