I’m not exactly sure when I became a grumpy old man — the kind waving a jagged stick and shouting at those damned kids for hanging out in front of the strip mall stirring up a ruckus, but the (d)evolution has occurred.

As a cranky old fart, I’ve started to safety pin my adult diaper on and wonder why Saint Patrick’s Day is such a heralded American event.

For over a thousand years, Irish families used March 17, an Irish holiday steeped in religion, to participate in the banned activities brought on by Lent — drinking, dancing and eating.

Over the past 100-some years, St. Patrick’s Day has become a blur of bad decisions brought on by a compound of neon green libations and curdling concoctions of liquor.

They don’t call it an “Irish Car Bomb” for nothing. Consumers often end up blowing up the restrooms.

I feel like I’ve discussed this over-indulgence before. Perhaps I have for one of the other ‘holidays’ now set aside as a pure fiasco of drunkenness.

Holidays such as New Year’s Eve, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day (for the heartbroken), Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day, Independence Day, Kwanza, Hanukkah, Labor Day. You get the point.

Halloween, Easter, Sweetest Day, National Drink-a-Beer day, Winter Solstice, Summer Solstice, Take Your Kid to Work Day, The Super Bowl, The Puppy Bowl, National Record Store Day, Mardi Gras, Cinco De Mayo and Black History Month have been hallowed out of their original meaning and filled with pools of booze, booze, booze.

It’s a cash cow and it’s udderstood why bars, breweries and pubs reset their St. Paddy’s Day ticker come midnight on the 18th.

With only an estimated 11 percent of Americans being part of the diaspora from Ireland, why does it seem like nine-eighths of the population is out getting into car crashes this day?

There’s always someone looking for an excuse to get drunk and punch a stranger, and the hoards come running like something that comes running. I’m too drunk to think of something clever and potato-themed.

People get the day off work to drizzle green vomit out of their mouths.

What managing official is oblivious to the fact that when your work force unanimously calls in sick that morning that a resurgent bout of Bubonic Plague probably isn’t the case?

An Irish.

If you are of the heredity and actively religious, all the more reason you should celebrate and take offense at the muddling masses huddling your usual lonely bar stool.

It should come across with animosity when you get a glimpse up a kilt and the hue of hair makes you realize that person isn’t actually Irish.

My discourse, of course, shouldn’t prevent anyone from making their own terrible choices this doomsday.

Throw your hands up in the ay-er, ay ay-er, ay-er, ay-er. Pretend like you love hearing Flogging Molly’s “Drunken Lullabies” 900 times within four hours.

But, what do you do with a drunken student early in the morning?

Hope those hangovers clear up come Monday, and make sure you change out of your horrendous, stink-ridden green outfits.

In fact, it would probably be best to throw them into a humongous fire — smells like that can rarely be washed out.

If you are among the few and far-between resisting attempted St. Patty’s alcohol poisoning, pat yourself on the back and prepare for your pastel-colored puke on Easter.

Contact multimedia reporter Brian Figurski via email at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter

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