No too long ago (not too long ago in my head anyway), a weekend like this one would have caused me to have a hard on with anticipation all week long.

St. Patrick’s Day and my Spring Break vacation at the same time?

Hello drunken fun!!

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, and my Spring Break is next week.  Perfect!

I don’t have to get up early for work tomorrow and I don’t have to work again at all until next Monday!

I did not, however, have a hard on all week in anticipation of the weekend.

Running the St. Patrick’s Day 5 mile run and getting tanked on cheap, green beer the rest of the day (I ran 5 miles, I deserve it!) was a tradition.  A most excellent tradition!

Alas, the tradition became more intermittent once Ace was born 9 years ago, and has, by this point, nearly fizzled out completely.

Brace yourself now, but this weekend’s plan was to take the kids to a local farm where they have newborn animals for the kids to see and pet.

I know, right?

It smells like goats and cows and farm animal fecal matter, but it’s better than you’re probably imagining.  Unless you live on a farm, in which case this is just waking up and living for you.

It’s completely free and there are other activities for the kids besides touching disgusting farm beasts, including a really kickass dog show.  I think I like this show more than the kids do even.  I don’t know what it’s called, but the dogs catch Frisbees and run obstacle courses and jump into a pool.  These are the real deal dogs and trainers, so the show is pretty awesome.

If you’re near St. Louis, Purina Farms is a great outing, especially if you have little ones and little money.

While I did briefly entertain thoughts of sowing my Irish oats like old times today and drinking until I puked and then puked again and then passed out, in the end, the closest I got to that was wearing a green shirt to aforementioned farm.

The only one doing any puking thus far has been G$.

He’s been puking his little brains out and is finally just dry heaving the nothing that is left in his stomach.  Poor kid.

I don’t know what he has, but I’m sure he probably licked the shopping cart handle at the grocery store or one of the kids at daycare was allowed to go to daycare and infect other kids even though his parents knew little Johnny was sick.  That’s always neat.

For those wondering what sort of grown ass man gets a spring break vacation, first of all, shut it, and secondly, it’s the kids who are on spring break and they can’t be left alone all week long.

Momma is out of vacation days to use so it’s up to daddy to be the caretaker this week.

Spring break, like snow days and sick kiddo days, are really a major inconvenience to working parents, but nobody seems to care.  If you’re reading this and are a teacher who gets this time off, know that I love you for teaching, but also, go fornicate yourself.

I hate to even sound like I’m sour about having to be off work all week while more work piles up on my desk and I get to enjoy the whole week with three of my favorite people.  Did I mention I’ll have all three of the kids next week?

Yup, all three of them.

They have many overdue doctor appointments to be gotten out of the way, so that’ll be fun for daddy.

Spring break did’t always involve me wanting to hang myself from my garage rafters as an alternative though.

That I can remember, I’ve done four spring break trips in my life.  Two of them I remember pretty well, and the other two were sort of duds.

In 1995, I drove my brand new Jeep Wrangler with a college pal of mine 1200 plus miles to South Padre Island, TX.  This one was my third spring break adventure.

The guy I went with was a nice guy, but I wouldn’t really even call him a friend.  He was really more of a guy I knew and was friendly with.  He asked me in passing if I’d be interested, and since I’m always interested in beer, beaches and more beer, I agreed to it.

All I can remember from this trip is seeing the “Welcome to Texas” sign and knocking back a few beers, only to realize that we were really only halfway there (Texas is a big freakin’ state) and also being sun burned as hell the first couple of days.

I mean REALLY burned!  That’s never happened before or since, but I remember feeling sick I was so sunburned.

I also remember being in a huge, I guess it was a bar, and watching some pussy get his belly button pierced.  I don’t know if he lost a bet or what, but he was screaming in pain and clearly drunk.  It was entertaining to watch.

Oh, and some asshole keyed a two foot line on the door of my brand new Jeep.

Those are the only things I remember about this trip.  It sort of sucked, honestly. I don’t think I even talked to another human being other than my buddy the few days we were there.

I had a similar trip with a female cousin type friend of mine to Florida.  This was maybe in 1992 or ’93.  She really wanted to go on spring break and apparently didn’t have any friends who wanted to join her.  Knowing my affinity for beer, beaches and more beer, I totally agreed to go with her.

I remember seeing a giant black guy wearing a thong walking down the street and having a security guard yelling at me about breaking a light bulb that I’m pretty sure I didn’t break.  That’s all I remember.  Another dud.

The most recent spring break trip was in 1998, when I was working for Anheuser-Busch.

They sent three of us to Lake Havasu, AZ (Lake Haveafew during spring break) for two weeks!

Free spring break?  Ok!

It rocked!

We hit all the bars accounts every day and had a great time with the Bud distributor in that area.  They took us around on their pontoon boats, let me join their softball team for the time I was there and got us shitfaced pretty regularly.

The London Bridge is in Lake Havasu, if you’re ever asked.

My favorite spring break, however, was the one that a group of us took during high school.

I’ll have to think about the events of that week and make it it’s own post…