You remember grade school...third, fourth, fifth grade? How certain dates took on ridiculous importance?
Before the hormones really even let us know that it mattered, we were putting up valentines in Mrs. Dragomanovich's class (third grade), one for every single person, expressing, uh, love? Odd behavior indeed, and probably now outlawed across the land for fear of the development of androgynous eight year old stalkers.
St. Patrick's day was an interesting one. If you didn't wear green, every other kid on the goddamn playground got to pinch you. If the green you were wearing was overlooked and you got pinched, I don't remember what the recourse was - double pinch? Slug in the shoulder? Bitch slap to the braces?
There were three categories of St. Patrick's day kids:
--those whose parents just said, "yer wearin' green today cuz that's what people do on March 17th."
--those who wore green like they'd been run over by the Joyous Truck of St. Patty. Green, green, green, proud of it! I'm Polish, but today EVERYONE is Irish! These were the goody children, mainly girls, but some boys too. Attention seekers? Overly competitive? Too much time on their hands?
--and those who hid a shred of green somewhere on their person, somewhere not visible, so that they would get pinched, then be able to self-righteously claim a great wrong perpetrated against them. "It's right here you TARD..." pulling up a pant leg to show a green sock. And then the argument of the legality of the green placement ensued.
Unfortunately, in those times that my parents were indifferent to my sartorial options, I was the third of these classes of kids.
How predictable...
