Chapter 12: St. Patty's Day Special

St. Patrick's Day has a bit of significance to me. Not because I'm a good Catholic, an Irish or an alcoholic; Its because St. Patty's Day was supposed to be my first date with my girlfriend. You see we knew each other since high school and years later, after tracking me down on Facebook we reconnected. I asked her out for some fun and fanfare but she couldn't make it and we rescheduled for the 19th which became our official first date. Still I mark the 17th as the day she said yes which at the time was just as much a victory as a superbowl touchdown.

As the years have passed we have spent the green-themed holiday largely having fun among friends at a few of Ypsilanti's taverns and grills. Unfortunately we couldn't start early this year since I had work at the theater. Instead of sulking until six, I decided to make the best of it and made some festive four-leaf clover pretzels, complete with green icing for our cinnamon pretzels. They turned out pretty well though earlier versions of them resembled butterflies more than anything else. One of my co-workers informed me the three-leaf clover would be more appropriate so I glared at him until he turned to stone.

Later in the day, I out geeked a cocky customer who thought they were a self-appointed member of the PC Police. She admired my pretzels then informed me people might be offended by me hocking "Christian symbols" at work. Trying not to get my Irish up, I informed her that technically the pretzel is a Christian symbol. According to my Renaissance to Reformation professor in college, the pretzel was invented during the 1138 siege of Vienna. Bakers didn't have enough dough to make their daily bread so they rolled it out really thin and formed them into what was then the Christian symbol for help.

I felt pretty proud about knowing that. Like Captain Kirk having the seemingly trivial knowledge of making gunpowder, I had the knowledge necessary to embarrass a customer without resorting to a swift kick in the shamrocks. She walked away having learned something...and a pretzel. Later via the reputable source of Wikipedia I realized I had my siege wrong; Vienna was actually attacked in 1529, but they are a Christian symbol. But on the off chance she's reading, I'll make sure to put out a crescent moon during Ramadan.

After work I went back to the apartment where Danni was waiting for me with a rosemary chuck roast and potatoes, a meal so Irish I'm still growing red hair from it. We then watched Hackers (1995) while waiting for friends to be done with their respective obligations.

Hackers is probably the best film you will ever watch about people hunched over on their computers. I doubt its realistic, my computer skills are limited to me knowing what a blog is. Still I know enough to assume a computer mainframe does not look like The Matrix (1999) had sex with Tron (1982) with a pair of 3D glasses. Still, the story was interesting enough and the characters were actually pretty interesting and sympathetic. Even the villain, a fellow computer-geek working for "the man" was good. He was like a dweeby Dr. Doom.

The only sour point really was the inclusion of Matthew Lillard. Don't get me wrong I don't hate him as an actor I just hate the parts he was type-cast to play, i.e. annoying sidekicks who scarf down junk food. The very fact that the principle cast was saved by him is indication enough you shouldn't take the movie seriously. Still for every Matthew Lillard there is a pre-Tomb Raider (2001) Angelina Jolie. Its easy to forget that even before that role she was still a major bombshell.
While the movie was playing, friends cancelled one by one leaving us all dressed up with nowhere to go. Feeling the need to experiment and recover the night, we went out to a club we have never been to to partake in some sultry fun. Coincidentally, we met up with a couple I knew and assumed didn't actually get out much. They do, we did, and thus what started as a pretty boring night, turned out to be a great night filled with green beer and plastic bowler hats. What this has to do with getting all the snakes out of Ireland? I have no idea.