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Steak Patties Day

By Sarah Larson | Posted Under Comment Diversions | Comments (44)



green-beer.jpg

(Publishers Note: Because I was in flight most of yesterday, the St. Patty’s Day comment diversion is a day late. My sincerely apologies. For the purposes of this diversion, just pretend that it’s yesterday.)

True story: a couple of weeks ago, I was on the phone scheduling a meeting and before I hung up, the admin on the other end asked me, “You’re part Irish, right? Do you know why they call it Steak Patties Day?” My mother is from Dublin and I lived there in the summers growing up. People ask me all sorts of asinine questions about Ireland, but this is the first one I’m planning on having made into a shirt. So basically what I’m saying is that I hope you lot are planning on eating your steak patties today.

Of course, everybody knows the REAL reason they call it Steak Patties Day is because St. Patrick’s Day is totally Purim for Gentiles, and it’s a mitzvah to get as wasted as you possibly can without actually dying of alcohol poisoning, and when you’re that drunk you’ll eat anything. Even steak patties, whatever the holy hell they are.

On a related note, when I was a kid I went on a field trip to a sewage treatment plant, because my school hated children and wanted them to suffer. On that field trip, I learned about activated sludge. Have you heard of this? It’s what they call the hot soupy mess of wastewater mixed with oxygen and organisms to make this stuff they call biological floc, which is designed to reduce the organic content of sewage. The mix of raw sewage and activated sludge is referred to as mixed liquor.

On this most holy day of Gentile Purim, I want you to tell me all about the most heinous activated sludge you’ve ever created, whether it’s because you were already so drunk that everything seemed like a good idea, or because you were 19 and it was spring break and you and your best friend were staying in your great aunt’s condo in Sarasota because that was the only place you could afford to go and Great Aunt Mimi fell asleep after her stories and you raided her liquor cabinet and all that was in there was crème de menthe, butterscotch schnapps and Southern Comfort because that’s how ladies roll when they’re 189 years old, and you thought to yourself that all of those things are pretty goddamn disgusting, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you mixed them together, right? They’d probably sort of cancel each other out and it might taste just like a long island, right? And it turned out that you were wrong, OH MY GOD IN HEAVEN WERE YOU WRONG, and then ten minutes later you and your best friend were having an elaborate hallucination involving a cartwheeling circus midget, the members of Wham!, a talking sofa cushion and Great Aunt Mimi’s yippy little shih tzu wearing a monocle.

So what’s your activated sludge? To what sorts of unholy concoctions have you subjected your liver? Tell me all about the foulest alcoholic substances you’ve ever voluntarily consumed.

Sarah Larson lives in Minnesota, where she is usually up to no good. She does not actually have a Great Aunt Mimi and has never been to Sarasota, but her clearest memory of activated sludge involves SLIGHTLY illegal activity and is best left unmentioned. She only updates her blog when bullied into it, but you can read the archive here if you’re bored enough.









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Comments

That exact scenario happened to me. Accept my aunt's name is Eugenia and it was mescal instead of SoCo.

And the dog was wearing the villainous version of the monocle. You know what it's called.

Posted by: superasente at March 18, 2010 12:37 PM

This doesn't count, but my boyfriend once mixed together whiskey and applesauce, which he said theoretically should go good together because whiskey and apple cider do. I did not try this. May God have mercy on his soul.

Posted by: Stacey at March 18, 2010 12:40 PM

Privy water: Blue curacao, grain alcohol, possibly some vodka of questionable lineage, and that weird syrup they use for blue slushies. No, I didn't mix the damned thing. Yes, I did drink it. Then I followed a mud beggar into a maze and paid him a dollar to recite Hamlet's soliloquy in under 30 seconds whilst hanging upside down by his knees and smoking a very fat herbal cigarette. He missed not a single word, and his inflection was perfect. To the best of my knowledge, there was no shih tzu, bespectacled or otherwise.

Posted by: Reba at March 18, 2010 12:41 PM

I have no interesting story, I'm just here to say when it's referred to as St Patty's Day I twitch. Can't help it. Call it St Paddy's, fair enough, but Patty's...blech. I'll spend the rest of this comment diversion under my desk having a fit I'm sure.

Posted by: Carrie at March 18, 2010 12:43 PM

New Year's Eve, 2002 or 2003. Probably fortunate that I don't remember exactly.

We made use of what we had on hand. Never, EVER try this. I'm serious. Just don't.

Orange juice, Absolut, Chartreuse, Jose Cuervo, and red Hawaiian Punch, in a bowl with ice. Holy hell, it's making me nauseous just thinking about it again.

Posted by: Snath at March 18, 2010 12:48 PM

Coors Light, Carona and Budwiser. I may as well have drank pee.

Also, thanks to my current job, I know too much about sewer systems and wastewater treatment even though it has nothing to do with my profession.

Posted by: admin at March 18, 2010 12:48 PM

A buddy and I had an end of the semester "clean out the liquor cabinet" party. Very shortly, there was no real booze left, and we decided to see what creme de menthe and Godiva liqueur tasted like.
Don't do it.
We kept going. Rose's Lime mixer and rum also do not go well, unless you're a pirate operating solely in the Bahamas. And hate yourself.

Posted by: Ian at March 18, 2010 12:49 PM

We had a bar in my college town where the bartender (for I think $5) would create what he called a JFK. He'd face you, reach behind him and grab three bottles. Whatever was in those three bottles, you drank it. Why was it called a JFK? Because it was "three random shots from behind."

Worst thing my friends ever made me drink was at my 21st birthday party. A shot of tequila with tabasco sauce; it was called a Prairie Fire. Puked my guts out.

Posted by: scorzi at March 18, 2010 12:50 PM

Sorry, you lost me at "scheduling a meeting." Do they allow patients to congregate at your particular institution?

Posted by: Sean at March 18, 2010 12:52 PM

Uh, St Patty's is my birthday. My boss ordered me a singing telegram because of course he did. That was a lot of humiliation to drink away. Don't really want to think about booze right now. Especially not gross booze. Still might ralph.

My 21st, a friend of a friend ordered me a "birthday shot" and they didn't tell me what it was till I took it. The bar's worst gin plus the bar's worst tequila and tanked as I was I still knew it was foul. Ugh.

If I boot at the office, there is no rally ...

Posted by: Victoria at March 18, 2010 12:53 PM

I spent a summer in college working on a sewer truck. I saw... things I can't unsee. Had to do things I wish I could forget.

{shudder}

As for drinks, I'd say the prairie fire (tequila and tabasco), except that I kind of like prairie fires.

But in high school I tried to make jello shots with grape jello, gin and whiskey. I don't recommend it.

Posted by: TK at March 18, 2010 12:53 PM

Grape soda and grain alcohol, baby. Disgusting.

Posted by: samantha t at March 18, 2010 12:54 PM

I can't remember the name, which given this story is unsurprising, but there is a card game with a cup. Everyone draws cards and each card is a category or action. Anyway, when a certain card comes up you have to our part of your drink in the central cup. And this continues until some other poor soul gets the card that requires him to DRINK the concoction. by this time there is usually a nice assortment of beer, vodka tonics, rum and cokes, and wine.

A couple times I had to drink one of those. There is a reason I'm vague on the rules of this game. I think it's called "Queens" maybe and is actually quite fun as long as you are not the one stuck with the cup at the end.

Posted by: TylerDFC at March 18, 2010 12:55 PM

I am a really picky drinker, so I don't have a story like this. But, my husband once drank Everclear with milk b/c that was all they had at 18 in the dorm rooms.

Posted by: Nimue at March 18, 2010 12:55 PM

TylerDFC, we called that "Circle of Death" in college, and the penalty for breaking the circle of cards was doing the middle shot. That's often a game ender.

Posted by: Ian at March 18, 2010 12:58 PM

For our senior trip, we went to the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras. At the airport we bought gallons and gallons of rum and vodka.

Towards the end of the three-day trip all we had left was a gallon of dark rum and some packets of orange Tang. The tang went into the rum.

It was beyond vile, and I barely tried a sip. It was completely gone by the next morning, probably drunk by the three people who had stayed up all night.

Posted by: figgy at March 18, 2010 1:00 PM

My very first alcoholic drink was actually triple sec mixed with strawberry YooHoo. It was disgusting but apparently I didn't care because I ended up drunk and making out with my next door neighbor in his mom's closet later in the night (random).

Posted by: Melina at March 18, 2010 1:03 PM

Once my boyfriend mixed Vanilla Stoli and Newman's Own Iced Tea. To this day he maintains it was good and not a desecration of a Newman's Own product. It was the last of the iced tea! And it was contaminated with vanilla vodka!

I don't even think Paul was dead at that point. That may have been what did it.

Posted by: vikky at March 18, 2010 1:03 PM

Hey Melina! *suggestively shakes bottle of YooHoo*

How you doin?

Posted by: Snath at March 18, 2010 1:08 PM

We were entertained last night by a few Irishmen and a brit here and there. We'd had enough of the Guinness and Kilkenny, so we drunkenly decided to make them a local concoction. A hefty measure of Kilpdrift brandy,Mampoer (think of it a local moonshine/petrol substitute),topped with a Amarula (Bailey's type cream but with marula fruit) and a Mopane worm (Google images a must for this one) at the bottom as an incentive to down it all in one go. Not being complete bastards we all had a glass of it. It was epically horrendous, as was the faces we all pulled before, during and after.

Posted by: bob at March 18, 2010 1:10 PM

Unlike TK, I don't like Praire Fires so that one is probably right up there for me.

In college, I used to go to ROTC parties (the military is all about the drinking), which naturally involved various types of jungle juice. I probably don't even want to know what was in those - usually lots of vodka, but I think one night our host decided to mix things up with Everclear. I think that was the night I ended up throwing up in my dorm room all over our rug. I threw up so much I wondered if I vomiting blood until my roommate (who is a saint for putting up with me that night) reminded me that the jungle juice was in fact red. She ended up cutting a hole in the rug and we spent the rest of the year with a hole in the floor.

After another one of those parties, the same host (they were usually at his house) got so drunk that when he got up for drill the next morning he couldn't find his keys or his pants - he ended up finding them a month later stuffed under the staircase.

But I haven't had too many super-crazy concoctions. One night I told my ex I wanted a pina colada but supersweet. He decided to add some extra coconut rum but accidentally grabbed the margarita mix instead of the tequila mix - coconut rum and tequila are disgusting together.

Oh, okay, I remembered another one (maybe I should stop with the binge drinking) - last year I was at a Cinco de Mayo party, and my friend's margarita recipe called for 2/5 tequila, 2/5 lemon juice and 1/5 triple sec - is that normal because everyone tells me I'm crazy when I tell them this. Let's just say it was incredibly strong and drinking four in less than two hours with other alcohol - not one of my better ideas.

Maybe I should stop letting people in the Army mix drinks for me. Buy, yes, mix, no.

Posted by: Jen K at March 18, 2010 1:10 PM

Based on all my typos and incorrect word choices up there, I may in fact be drunk at this moment. I meant to say pina colada mix, not tequila mix.

Posted by: Jen K at March 18, 2010 1:17 PM

In high school my sister and I would always get home before our parents did, so we'd get ready for homework time by mixing up whatever liquor we could find with whatever was hanging out in the fridge. A favorite was gin & Tang. It's actually not that bad.

Then, later on in college, I remember going shot for shot one evening with my then-boyfriend and his buddies. I only remember whiskey, So Co, tequila, Jagermeister, and...nope, I don't remember much after that. I don't even know how I got home that night.

Posted by: Kolby at March 18, 2010 1:23 PM

I am not a fan of mixed drinks, so I have no such stories. However, my sister-in-law once mixed olive juice (the stuff left over when you eat a jar of olives) and Godiva liquor. I don't remember what she called it, but I swear I saw some curdling going on. She claimed it was great. Someone else tried hers and couldn't actually swallow it though, so I'm going to go with "insane" on this one.

Posted by: Phaeolus at March 18, 2010 1:25 PM

Oh geez, this isn't about me but ...

When I was in college the school rented a bus to take students to a basketball game a couple hours away. That bus was a liquor store on wheels: beer, brandy, schnapps, I have no idea what else. It all got passed around and I'm not one to refuse a free swallow.

Side note: At one point in the trip the cheerleaders in the back started chanting "WE GOTTA PEE!" and they made the driver pull over so they could all trot out into a field and write their names in the snow.

Back to story: The game was already about 10 minutes over when we arrived, and my friend Mark and I picked out a couple seats in the bleachers. I was feeling fine until I looked up to see what the score was and couldn't make the board come into focus. Ohhhh. I spent the rest of the game with my head between my knees, but I managed not to retch.

Instead, when the game I ended I said to Mark, "Come on, we gotta get the bus," and looked over and he was barfing in the bleachers. All over the bleachers. He looked at me and said, "I can't," then BLEAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH. I said, "Come on, you have to," and half dragged him to the bus ...

You know, it didn't occur to me until this moment that some miserable bastard of a janitor had to clean up the splatter the next day. Ew.

Posted by: , at March 18, 2010 1:27 PM

Long time Irish lurker, first time pedantic poster, reminding everyone that it's Paddy's day, not Patty's day!

Posted by: Bob Loblaw at March 18, 2010 1:38 PM

Hey Bob Loblaw, are you from Boston, recently relocated to the DC area?

Posted by: the new transported man at March 18, 2010 1:40 PM

It's all a bit hazy now, but I know when the night started it was a gin & tonic. Then something blue (not sure what it was, but it was alcoholic), sake & scotch.

I don't drink anymore.

Posted by: ZombieNurse at March 18, 2010 1:42 PM

When I was 19, both of my parents worked over 100 miles away. They stayed in a motel near work every Tuesday and Thurday night, which meant all the parties were at my house. We would get any kind of liquor we could (underage, ya know) and drink until he couldn't feel feelings anymore. I was making Planter's Punch (rum, OJ, and grenadine) all night long until we ran out of OJ.

We still had some old Budweiser....

So, being the friendly drunken host that I was (and still am), I mixed up light rum, old Budweiser, and grenadine. It was so pretty and flourescent pink that I handed it to my best freind and said, "Drink this!" He prompty too one large gulp, gave me a look I have never seen before or since, shot out of his seat, and ran bouncing off the walls of the hallway into the bathroom.

We didn't make it to the toilet...

Instead, he filled (and I mean filled) the SINK with bright pink fettucini alfredo. And left it there till morning.

The best part was the next morning he was in the bathroom in fucking hazmat gear throwing up while cleaning his puke.

Posted by: Schpida (he is our hero) at March 18, 2010 1:46 PM

Great... I just posted my name...
fail

Posted by: Schpida (he is our hero) at March 18, 2010 1:47 PM

New transported man, not me I'm afraid, I'm from and currently in Ireland!

Posted by: Bob Loblaw at March 18, 2010 1:52 PM

Vodka shots chased with Dr. Pepper. Or was it root beer? One of those dark, non-cola sodas. A great way to make fast friends with new people, and bond with each other by puking simultaneously into various bathroom fixtures at the end of the night. Good times? I still can't say for sure.

Posted by: katy at March 18, 2010 2:10 PM

Schpida (he is our hero), I fixed that for ya. Now stop posting while drunk.

Posted by: TK at March 18, 2010 2:40 PM

Late last night my friends threw together what they had left in the fridge-- jaeger and mountain dew. they said it was good... i have my doubts

Posted by: Ariana at March 18, 2010 2:54 PM

Vodka.

Apple juice.

Nightmares afterward. Not recommended.

Posted by: The Wanderer at March 18, 2010 3:09 PM

Real Irish people, even fucking atheists like me, hate it when non-Irish people, like you, call it Patty's Day, (or Paddies, Paddy's, Pats' etc).

Every year I tell you. Every year you ignore it. You twunts.

Posted by: Donalb at March 18, 2010 3:36 PM

At one of my good friends bachelor parties I was that guy, the resident alcoholic, the guy that would drink anything. Well, I was also the guy that rarely got drunk. So, my friends decided to make me what they called the "Ultimate Weapon." They basically took every type of liquor (which included the different varieties of beer) and poured it into one tall glass which I then had to chug. Not that bad, except the Bailey's had curdled on the top already.

Posted by: DeistBrawler at March 18, 2010 3:39 PM

There was a tradition in our college dorms that the person that couldn't afford to drink that night would be dubbed "Garbage Disposal" and would be allowed to have any mixed drink that didn't turn out so well. (Hey, we were young and new at this alcohol thing). The worst thing I drank as Garbage Disposal was coconut rum and Pina Colada mix with a heavy dose of SoCo thrown in for flavor and some pineapple juice. Thinking about it makes me want to tear out my own tongue.

Posted by: Quorren at March 18, 2010 3:51 PM

I used to drink a lot of Bacardi 151 because it was like getting two fifths for the price of one. 3 shots and I would be lit like a Christmas tree. This was a few years ago during my freshmen days but I still have flashbacks every time I put gas in my car.

The single grossest thing would have to be the time I chased Popov with a soup at hand clam chowder. It was surprisingly effective. I refuse to drink bottom shelf vodka anymore because I've had so many horrible experiences.

Posted by: schrome at March 18, 2010 4:24 PM

Well, my friends and I were quite the experimental drinkers in undergrad. There was homemade Walk Me Down night, which we never actually made one properly, but the guy making them did wind up passed out on his own kitchen floor about 4 hours after starting. Should you choose to have a Walk Me Down, be warned that everything will be blue. This is the actual recipe:
1/2 oz Vodka
1/2 oz Triple sec
1/2 oz Rum
1/2 oz Gin
1/2 oz Tequila
1 oz Sour mix
1/2 oz Blue Curacao
Sprite

Then I tried to make an Alabama Slammer, which I love, and never quite got that right either. The actual recipe is this:
1/2 oz amaretto almond liqueur
1/2 oz Southern Comfort® peach liqueur
1/2 oz sloe gin
1 splash orange juice
1 splash sweet and sour mix

I had basic SoCo, no OJ and had made a few creative changes. It was not a grand idea. Silky O'Sullivan's and the Diver, also not a good idea. Nor is the frozen questionable concoction at Memphis in May that changes every year.

Also, if you are making jungle juice, punch, or any of that chopped up fruit and hawaiian punch combo, it's always Everclear. ALWAYS.

Fun story about Everclear. A friend of mine caught the tree in another person's front yard on fire blowing a mouthful of Everclear over a lighter into the air. I have a great photo of a 4 foot tall fireball during this incident.

Posted by: Melody at March 18, 2010 4:33 PM

Guinness.

Posted by: MrFig at March 18, 2010 6:19 PM

21st birthday shot called a "bloody brain." I think it was Peach Schnapps with a dollop of Bailey's that kind of curdled in the middle of the Schnapps (that was the brain) and a streamer of grenadine (the blood). It tasted worse than it sounds, probably because the first time I ever got drunk, it was on a mix of Peach Schnapps and Blackberry brandy.

Posted by: Kimmyhula at March 18, 2010 7:09 PM

I went to several parties in college with a Jungle Juice bucket. Your ticket in the door was a bottle of something, it didn't matter what, and it went in the 10 gallon bucket in the middle of the room. Every once in a while one of the hosts would throw a 2 liter of 7-up in the mix to help keep it moderately palatable. A couple of times it was sweet and tasty and knocked you on your ass. Other times it was more "Dear GOD what did I just consume??"

Posted by: lumenatrix at March 18, 2010 8:04 PM

i took my daughter on a tour of the water treatment plant here a year or so ago. i thought i was the funniest thing ever. i took pictures of her with the sinkers/floaters tank (actually i took almost 50 pictures of her posing with various equipment and signs). they also had a ronnie the raindrop mascot taking polaroids with the kids.
best family outing ever

Posted by: courtney_1 at March 20, 2010 1:54 AM