and this applies to EVERY DAY of the year.  The Irish are like the ocean.  They sneak up when you’re not looking and BOOM, next thing you know, you’re drinking green beer chasing leprechaun’s in your bikini, wearing a giant hat.

Every year, some friends and I have a long-standing tradition of pretending we’re Irish on St Patrick’s day and terrorizing the city.  To be more specific, I pretend I’m Irish, but the majority of my company on St Patrick’s day are, in fact, Irish – so I guess they’re not pretending.  Whatever, semantics.

This past year, St Patrick’s day happened to fall on a Saturday, and it was absolutely beautiful outside.  Perfect parade weather…if you watch the parade, of course.  Which I don’t, I was holed up in various bars from noon till like 10PM.  In any event, a lot of my friends are FDNY or NYPD and either marched or worked, and they said the weather was nice.

One of the girls I hang out with (on days other than St Patrick’s day, too, of course, that’s just one of our bigger days of the year – the others being Memorial day weekend, Labor Day weekend and the Annual NYCTBC), emailed me this morning because the LIRR is doing a test run of banning alcoholic beverages from 5AM Saturday morning through Sunday, in the train station, on the trains, etc.

For the most part, I don’t find this to be a very big deal.  Mainly because I’m not 17 anymore, and I don’t need to drink on the train (with the exception of St Patrick’s day and NYCTBC).  In fact, I do everything in my power to avoid those trains at night – labelled “the drunk train” out of Penn Station.  I think its like 1:35AM, 2:35 AM, and if you miss that, a 3:50 AM or something insane. 

When I say “insane”, I mean just that.  There are fights on the train, people throwing up, crying, yelling, dropping pizza, spilling beer and soda and God knows what.  And they’re all kidlets, I’d put each one under the age of 25.  You’re just as likely to catch hepatitis on this train as you are to get thrown up on.  I could count the number of times I’ve actually BEEN on the drunk train in the past couple of years, and they all have to do with one of the aforementioned events.

I’m thinking that by banning booze around these times, you’re most likely just going to prompt these kids to get even drunker before getting on the train, and instead of having the loud, rambunctious drunk kids, you’re going to have the kids well into the dizzy, vomiting stage of the drunk-edness.  I’m pretty sure NON of the conductors or MTA PD want that.  We’ll see.

Besides, these rules don’t apply to me.  I don’t think I’ve ever actually listened to a rule about not drinking on the train – but I don’t drink like a jerk on the train.  My beer is usually in a to-go cup, and I’m focusing on the beer, not the idiot stepping on my foot.  In fact, I had no idea you weren’t supposed to drink beers at the Jamaica train station.  A friend and I were there a few months ago, having a cocktail on our way to Astoria when a couple of MTA cops calles us over:

MTA PD: “excuse me, ladies?”

Me: “yessssssssssssssssssssssss. officers?” (cops like when you talk to them like that)

MTA PD: “you know you’re not supposed to be drinking here, right?’

Well, no, we didn’ tknow.  So we finished our beers and threw them out.  Some dude walks up next to us and whispers “must be nice to be girls.  I would’ve gotten a ticket”

probably.