Kiss me! I’m Irish today!

St. Patrick’s Day is one of those ambiguous special occasions that can be quite confusing for non-Irish adults like me.

As a kid, the purpose of St. Patrick’s Day seemed clear to me: wear something green to school and get my mom to take me to McDonalds for one of my all time favorite treats ÔÇô The Shamrock Shake. Mildly green, with a hint of mint, I savored that delectable annual delight and looked forward to this little tradition every year.

As a college student, having Irish heritage was still pretty much irrelevant. No one I knew was interested in getting in touch with their roots. To the contrary, St. Patrick’s Day was nothing but an excuse to drink green beer at the local bars until we made complete idiots out of ourselves.

But when I turned into a middle-aged adult, St. Patrick’s Day’s relevance in my life became muddled. My taste buds had lost their longing for fast food shakes, and it was inappropriate for a 47-year-old mother of three to be drinking pitchers of green beer at the bars, so I had a hard time figuring out what I should do.

It’s easier for people with Irish blood. Even if your only connection is that your great uncle thrice removed was one-seventh Irish. Even if the closest thing you ever had to Irish culture was a bowl of Lucky Charms. Even if you were born and raised on a chili pepper farm outside of Albuquerque. As long as you are technically Irish, you have clear rights and privileges on St. Patrick’s Day.

You pseudo-Irish Americans have carte blanche to suddenly speak with the rolling “Rs” and over-enunciated “Ts” of Irish brogue. You’re permitted to utter phrases like “Top O’ the mornin’ t’ya!” and “She’s a fine young lassie!” You can unattractively fist pump to U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” even though all you know is the chorus. Without the slightest bit of credibility, you can suddenly develop a hankering for the blandest Irish Soda Bread, and Crockpots full of fatty corned beef and mushy cooked cabbage.

On the other hand, we non-Irish, despite our identical American upbringing, are not afforded the same indulgences and liberties as our pseudo-Irish friends. We must stand back, dazed and confused, repeatedly listening to that insensitive saying about the only two kinds of people in the world ÔÇô “the Irish and those who wish they were.”

The only way for the non-Irish to avoid this annual humiliation is to concede defeat, no matter how unjust it seems. And don’t try to reason with them because it simply won’t work. I once drew a comparison between my Welsh heritage, with its Celtic language and similar way of life, to the Irish culture. My analogy was met with indignant outrage, “Who cares? You’re not Irish!”

I have learned that, in order for we non-Irish to enjoy St. Patrick’s Day, we need to tell a little white lie ÔÇô or green as it were ÔÇô and exclaim that we wish we were Irish too. Like amnesty for illegal aliens, simple surrender will authorize us to wear tacky green beads and silly plastic hats, to guzzle Guinness and slop stew, to adorn ourselves with buttons that obnoxiously demand “Kiss me, I’m Irish!” and to shamelessly dangle shamrocks from our ears and rear view mirrors.

In other words, when dealing with the “fighting Irish” on St. Patty’s Day, it’s always best to roll with the punches.