I am not big on the whole St. Patrick’s Day thing. I have been more strident in my dislike in the past, especially when I lived a life more likely to expose me to drunken idiots in green (ie, when I lived in Chicago) but I am not willing to even pretend to be remotely Irish, am definitely not remotely Catholic, and I don’t drink, and between those three things I don’t have any particular use for this holiday. This means that when my wife told me that we were getting together with her side of the family today, and that “brisket” would be involved, I was excited as hell– I never get brisket– and I did not even think to connect it to the holiday.

You can imagine my consternation when we got to the party and the “brisket” was corned beef, which yes, I understand is from the same part of the cow and is in fact a different preparation of the same meat, but Goddammit when I get to a party and I’m expecting brisket on a Sunday afternoon and instead I’m given a reuben I might start muttering under my breath and quietly sending pointed and slightly disrespectful text messages to my wife. Don’t misunderstand me, I love a good reuben, although my particular preference for brined meats on rye runs more to pastrami– but reubens don’t at all fit into the same headspace as “brisket,” dammit, and part of me still feels betrayed.(*)

The rest of me is stuffed full of corned beef, though, so all in all it was a pretty good day.

(*) I should have learned after seventeen years of marriage into this family that I should never assume I know what is going to happen when we go to her sister’s place for a meal, even when said sister isn’t responsible for the cooking, and most of the cooking for this particular event was done by her cousins. The last time we went there for Thanksgiving there were no mashed potatoes, which is a food sin of the highest order, and I absolutely left that particular gathering with my dis firmly gruntled. You can’t even call it Thanksgiving if there are no mashed potatoes. It may as well be Mashed Potato Day. There can be other potatoes too, I’m fond of au gratin and any form of sweet potato, but either way wrongs were committed against Thanksgiving in general and me in particular.