This past Sunday as you know, was St. Patrick's Day. If you know me, you know it is my favorite holiday. It is my favorite holiday because there are no gifts involved or required, nor is there a massive meal that needs planned. You can do all of those things if you so desire, but they are not traditional let's say. So contrary to popular belief, I do not love it because it is an opportunity to get drunk.
Needless to say some very wonderful friends and family saw to it that I had a St. Patrick's Day to remember and I will never forget it. It was fun and special and I laughed, harder than I had in awhile. And fun was had by all. AND because it is 2013 and times are different, people went out of their way to make sure we all had a designated driver. And for that I am eternally grateful. Not only are they wonderful people but they are also FUN people who do not have to drink to have fun.
Regardless of all of that fun, I am pissed and I am pissed for a very good reason.
Not one establishment would give our drivers a free non alcoholic beverage. Juice, tea, fountain pop. Not one. Had we went in to each place and only stayed for one drink, meh, maybe, but there were at least 15 of us, more towards the end of the day and every single solitary place refused to give our driver a drink. And multiple drinks were purchased of the alcoholic variety. Also, when we were at these places, we were pretty much the only ones there with a few tables here and there at different ones. It would not have been hard to keep track of these people and it wouldn't have cost the bar a damn cent after what we were paying for drinks.
Why does this make me mad? Simple? You have 3 grown ass adults driving all these other grown ass adults around YOUR TOWN, going to YOUR ESTABLISHMENTS and you cannot be bothered to give them a free pop? So that no one leaves your establishment and kills themselves or someone else?
Furthermore, I will probably NOT be going back to the Corner Connection, who kicked my almost 18 year old niece out because he didn't want to get a $500 fine. He didn't even card her or ask to see her ID. But when told she was there to drive her parents home, he still didn't care.
I get there are rules to follow and ordinances and what not, I really do. My problem is that we bent over backwards to make sure everyone got from point A to point B safely, only to be treated like our drivers were not appreciated. I owned a bar. I respect anyone who drives for someone. And on a Sunday when you are not that busy, you can keep track of the person who isn't drinking. She came at the end as well, it's not like we drug her around to the bars all day.
Anyway, there will be a Second Annual Shamrock Shuffle and I think I will stick to our little towns and villages where most of us grew up and have tried to make businesses thrive and succeed. I am not saying we were mistreated in any way, I am saying, I know how much that pop would have cost, or how much a glass of tea would have been and there is no way in hell it would have broke any of those establishments for the day. I also have an idea of how expensive a DUI can be and how valuable a life is so I guess if my niece is a couple months away from being able to go to war, I didn't expect it to be a problem for her to come make sure her parents got home safely.
Shaking my head Galesburg, shaking my head...
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