This Thursday marks St. Patrick’s Day, a wonderful religious holiday filled with whiskey, lies and regret. However, lately I’ve been wondering how this Catholic holiday became such a drunken mess.

The holiday is named after a famous saint from Ireland who was kidnapped by Irish raiders, later escaped and became a priest.

I know I would want to pound whiskey if I was kidnapped, but I’m still a little confused as to how this all ties together.

The official observances of St. Patrick’s Day range from going to church to drinking Irish whiskey. These are two things that I wouldn’t put together. I mean one I do weekly, and the other I haven’t done since I was 10 years old. I’ll let you decide which is which.

So, maybe people just see it as a random holiday, which is a good enough excuse to drink, I’d say. It seems as though most people don’t know of it as a religious holiday. This might explain why blacking out and sexually assaulting those who aren’t wearing green are the main two ways to celebrate it.

St. Patrick’s Day seems to be more of an Irish heritage celebration than a religious thing. That explains the green explosion and alcoholism. I’m going to take the high road here and stop my Irish alcohol jokes here, because I’m better than that. Besides, everyone likes to drink just as much as we Irish; they just aren’t as good at it.

However, the green thing kind of goes a little bit too far. Every year the Chicago River is dyed green in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, though that could possibly be just puke. Also, it is in common St. Patrick’s Day fashion to pinch anyone who is not wearing the color. That’s just a little bit out of line to me. Maybe I didn’t have time to make it to the Laundromat, but that’s no reason to pinch me. That’s annoying.

I’m not hating on the “any-excuse-to-drink” lifestyle surrounding St. Patrick’s Day. If anything, I support it. It’s a great way to make the best of any situation. But, in this case it’s become too cliché. It’s not long before hipsters stop donning that ironic green sweater and drinking green Stroh’s on this holiday. It’s too main stream anymore.

I vote that we beat the hipsters to it, and change our unreasonable drinking to a different occasion. When’s the last time any of you blacked out in a park while picking up trash on Earth Day? I bet you remember last years Passover way better than you remember St. Patrick’s Day. Unless for some reason you do remember St. Patrick’s Day, and in that case you definitely don’t have this college thing figured out. Extraterrestrial Abductions Day is three days after St. Patrick’s Day, so go out and make a difference by blacking out and waking up with a Martian.