St. Patrick's Day

"Hungry?"

"Yep."

"Ready?"

"Let's go."

Sandy and Gloria, my fellow newbies, and I step out into the chaos that floods midtown Fifth Avenue and its surrounding side streets, stomachs grumbling, in search of some afternoon sustenance.

"Did you actually make a conscious effort to wear green today, you big fat loser?" I ask rolling my eyes lazily over Gloria's olive sweater.

"Of course I did! What happened to the Irish love you Iro-phile?"

"Pshh. No one in Ireland wears green on St. Patrick's Day except for tourists," I huff, "but seeing as I'm American and an asshole, I wore a tiara that said 'Kiss me I'm Irish' when I was over there two years ago. Needless to say, no one bought it."

"Aren't Koreans are the Irish of the East?"

"Hell yeah! And they knew it over there too. Whenever I told someone I was Korean, they were like, 'that means you drink!'"

We laugh as we turn onto Fifth Avenue and start dodging crowds of people shrouded in Irish flags, dressed in bright green striped shirts, oversized felt hats with faux buckles, shamrocks painted on pale freckled cheeks, green feather boas.

"We should just go back down 44th and find a place on Madison," Sandy says, squinting through the crowd.

We turn back down the street just in time to see the rows of Irish police officers and firefighters marching down the street to join the parade on Fifth.

"They look so fucking cute in their little uniforms," I sigh, "but you know they don't look that good forreal."

"You must be shitting yourself, L."

"Now I know how Quagmire feels all the time."

"Who?"

"You know...giggidy giggidy goo."

-L