St. Patrick's Day Tips

• Order a round of Black and Tans for your friends. Convince them it's traditional.
• Carry a shillelagh. Use it for its traditional purpose - cracking the skulls of anyone who wears fecking leprechauns on their clothing.
• If you run out of Irish drinking songs, remember that songs from other EU citizens are basically the same thing. May I suggest Ace of Base?
• Try the Salmon of Knowledge. It's delicious!
• Carry a sign reading "Down With This Sort Of Thing."
• Convert your name to its traditional Irish form by doubling every "n," turning every "o" into an "ui," and inserting an "haitch" before every vowel.
• Eamon De Valera quit drinking in the hopes that his countrymen would do likewise. Never speak of this.
• Celebrate St. Patrick's patronage of Nigeria with an evening of Nollywood films.
• Take up your Irish-American friends' invitations to kiss them, then spend the next two weeks at home with mononucleosis.
• Ask your German friends for money.
• Consider whether your quaint notions of the Auld Sod and its people could be mildly racist, and open your mind to the possibility that the Irish may be ordinary people like you and me. Then put these troubling thoughts aside.