How not to drink. Ever.

Warning: what follows is yet another curmudgeonly post.

What do New Yorkers dread about springtime? The annual invasion of the city by out-of-towners dead set on drinking until they vomit, usually wearing some form of green plastic.

You know who I mean. If you've spent even a few St. Patrick's Days in Manhattan, you've inevitably seen these guys, or someone very much like them:

Photo by wpix news.

They're not there when you head off to work in the morning, but by lunchtime they've crept into your favorite Irish dive (like my office local, Keats, on 2nd Avenue). And by evening they've poured out onto the streets, yelling drunkenly and crossing the street right in front of your damned bicycle.

And the green puke. Oh, the green puke.

As the Hudson Reporter points out, it could always be worse. Check out their link to CoEd magazine's photo essay featuring the St. Patrick's Day festivities in nearby Hoboken, New Jersey. Eerily reminiscent of a certain basic cable reality TV show, isn't it?

And if that doesn't cheer you up, you can still take heart! You have all of 364 days before the next onslaught.