Mothers ... don’t let your sons grow up to be bronies!

In this post: Bad decisions.

It’s still St. Patrick’s Day and I still don’t care.

Real bread is better than sex or a William Powell film festival.

In this post: St. Patrick, late installation, real bread.

It’s time once again for the western world to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, that beloved Irish holiday commemorating the patron saint of beer. Although Sam and I are not Irish and seriously don’t give a crap about St. Patrick’s Day in any way whatsoever, we’ll do our part to not be old crabasses about it and eat something green today with lunch. I’m thinking olives.

I have no idea whatsoever how insulin syringes and incontinence supplies connect to St. Patrick’s Day.

In this post: Diabetic leprechauns, Chinese food porn.

Glorioski. I just got an email promoting a “Luck o’ the Irish” sale at DiabetesSupplies4Less even though I’m not Irish, I’ve never been Irish, I don’t intend to be Irish and I have no idea whatsoever how insulin syringes and incontinence supplies connect to St. Patrick’s Day. Therefore, to celebrate not being Irish I just ordered three boxes of FreeStyle Lite diabetes test strips from eBay because they have no leprechaun clip art and better prices.

There’s no parade for Irish cowboys in Mesquite.

Sam and I would like to wish all Howdygram readers a joyous St. Patrick’s Day. We’re planning our own official celebration later today with lunch at Hong Kong Royal — dim sum! — and a nice long drive that might include a trip to the Choctaw Casino if I can talk Sam into it. This is the best we can do considering we don’t drink beer and there’s no parade for Irish cowboys in Mesquite. Also we’re Jewish, which means Chinese food and slot machines are perfect for all occasions.

Thank you for reading this.

Get ready to vomit shamrocks!

Hello from north Texas, where the skies are gray, the air is warm (78°) and somebody’s getting rain ... but it’s just not us. Weather.com is teasing us with thunderstorms for the next several days — severe storms on Monday — but trust me, I’ve lived here almost five years and they blow it every chance they get. Our five-day forecast appears below. Don’t believe it. The fine people of Dallas should go ahead with their outdoor weddings and golf tournaments.

Get ready to vomit shamrocks! To help the world honor St. Patrick, the patron saint of drunks and parades, Burger King is giving away FREE FRIES WITH GREEN KETCHUP — no purchase necessary! — on March 17 and 18, after which you should drive straight over to McDonald’s to wash them down with a minty green shake. Except you have to pay for the shake since McDonald’s apparently doesn’t give a crap about holy days.

Here’s some breaking financial news. Always a model of fiscal responsibility, I called AT&T yesterday afternoon to cut back on our U-Verse cable service. Last year they offered me a juicy 12-month discount when I signed us up for their bloated “450” plan with every channel ever invented including Bulgarian Classics, The Hopscotch Network and Korean high school wrestling. To avoid being billed an extra $48 a month starting tomorrow I switched us to the “350” plan, whereby we get to keep basic, expanded basic, premium basic, all the high-definition channels plus Encore, HBO and Cinemax ... all for less money. Glorioski! Pass the chips!

And now for the latest hogwash from presidential candidate Rick Santorum, the GOP’s official Stormtrooper-in-Chief, whose latest crusade is to ban pornography in the United States. This would include everything available to the general public that doesn’t meet his personal standard for decency, such as “Playboy” and possibly even “Top Chef,” where a couple of contestants were taped flirting with each other during season eight. Santorum says, “As a parent I am concerned about the widespread distribution of illegal obscene pornography and its profound effects on our culture. The Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families. That will change under a Santorum Administration.” Obama favors pornographers? Seriously?

Excuse me, Field Marshal Santorum, but have you read the first amendment lately? Ordinary pornography is not illegal ... and it’s also not especially widespread. I don’t know where you shop, Rick, but I walk into plenty of stores and businesses and have never yet been bombarded with copies of “Anal Weekly” or “American Orgasm.”

Santorum clearly wants to ban everything that offends him. Using that logic, I want to ban HIM. Actually, I’m surprised he’s found time to worry about porn considering his busy schedule condemning college educations, premarital sex, Puerto Ricans for speaking Spanish and radical, fallen women who work outside the home and take birth control pills. Please promise me you’re NOT going to vote for this idiot.

I’ve been trying to decide what’s for dinner tonight. The options here are endless, such as: 1) potato pancakes; 2) a toasted bagel with baloney and Vlasic bread & butter pickles; 3) fake meat in a can; or 4) call China City. At the moment I’m leaning towards #4 but the others all sound awfully damn wonderful, too. Please send an email ASAP if you’d like to cast your vote. Thank you.

In honor of St. Patrick.

Let me be perfectly clear about this from the get-go: NOBODY IN OUR HOUSE IS IRISH. Both Sam and I are Jewish with eastern European ancestry, which is technically as far from Irish as a person can get without being Chinese or South African. But even so, I thought I’d devote a couple of paragraphs to St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, as beer-drinkers around the world remember his death 1,572 years ago today. The last surviving snapshot of St. Patrick appears at right.

Here are some facts about St. Patrick and St. Patrick’s Day. One of them is not true. Can you guess which?

1. St. Patrick was born in Wales, not Ireland, but don’t tell anybody.
2. At one time his kid sister Harriet was engaged to a leprechaun.
3. Until the 1970s all pubs in Ireland were closed on March 17 and the only place you could buy yourself a beer was at the annual dog show.
4. Since 1962 nearly 100 tons of green dye are dumped annually into the Chicago River for St. Patrick’s Day (see below) for no apparent reason.
5. Blue — not green — is the color that’s associated with St. Patrick in Ireland.

I should really go to bed now because Sam is already in dreamland and I’m jealous. Thank you for reading this and pass the shamrocks.

P.S. — Item #2 in my St. Patrick’s Day list is baloney. Harriet was an old maid.