Leprechauns.

Pots of gold.

Way too many shirts that read “Kiss me I’m Irish.”

And what seems like an endless sea of green.

They’re all included in one “holiday” called St. Patrick’s Day.

Otherwise known as just another day to sulk in my house and complain of the events unfolding outside my door. I can just see it now. I’m wrapped in a blanket, holding my TV remote, scrolling through Netflix and periodically hissing at any green partiers who pass through.

Just like many others, St. Patrick’s Day has ranked itself as one of the worst days of the year. Why is that?

Well listen up all Irish pretendies. You live in the United States of America. Yeah, that’s right, America. Not Ireland. And as much as you, myself included, would love this great country to magically become Ireland, it just isn’t. Sadly, we cannot change the geography of the world for one day. It doesn’t work like that.

Given that a good portion of Americans are from Ireland descent, most are just a hair Irish. They feel the need to flaunt this only on St. Patrick’s Day, and it seems like they only want to be Irish on this particular day. And you want to know why you need to be Irish on March 17?

Because if you aren’t, you look dumb celebrating a holiday that has no real importance to you. Plain and simple.

St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration of a Christian saint named St. Patrick who, mind you, wasn’t even Irish anyways, but he came back to Ireland after this whole ordeal with God and was basically just converting the pagans to Christianity. Later, legends were told of him banishing snakes from Ireland. But there never were snakes. And more preposterous myths were told long after his death.

Which means, one, if you aren’t Irish or Christian, does the holiday have any REAL importance to you?

Nope.

And, two, why must you force your green excuse on me? Maybe I’m OK with not participating in the mass facade.

Another thing that has evolved this holiday is the seemingly harmless idea of pinching. For those who decide not to wear green, it suddenly becomes OK to squeeze two little fingers against their skin. Essentially we have turned into oppressive bullies forcing Irish on each other. Decide to partake in the celebratory green and you’re safe, no fingers flying towards your skin.

But if you decide to opt out, you must become a limbo pro. Dodging constant pain all day. And for those of us who happen to bruise easily, the next day we look like we were beat up by little leprechauns.

So please keep your pretend holiday to yourselves. I don’t need the adults excuse to drink or the child’s excuse to be a “leprechaun.”