It's Not Easy Being Green

Today at my work, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day.

One of the things that I love about my job is how festive everyone at my workplace is. Since I started there a year and a half ago, there have also been celebrations for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Puzzle Day, Valentines Day, Pi Day, spring cleaning, spring/Easter, Cinco de Mayo, and the 4th of July. That's not even counting the many times we've randomly been provided with pizza, sandwiches, Israeli food, snow cones, and massages.

Anyways, today at work everyone was wearing green, and we had a fun St. Patrick's Day potluck and limerick contest. The potluck dishes included salads, mashed potatoes with cabbage, fruits, veggies, chips, cornbread, artisan breads, and many, many desserts.

Earlier this week, when they were assigning potluck dishes, I signed up to bring some drinks. I know the people I work with, and I knew they would get super creative with their St. Patrick's Day-themed dishes. So creative, in fact, that it would almost be a competition. I decided to bring soda because, hey, less pressure. I went to the store and bought a Sprite and a lemonade.

I don't have a speck of Irish in me, and St. Patrick's Day isn't really a thing in my family. There's just one festive thing that my mom does every year: she puts some green food coloring in the milk. And then tells us all at breakfast that we've been visited by leprechauns and that they turned the milk green. Because turning milk green is what leprechauns are known for, probably.

Thinking I'd share the fun, I put a drop of green food coloring in each drink before I brought them to work today. I deposited the drinks in the break room and went about my business.

I sit near the break room, and I can hear almost everything that people say in there. Fifteen minutes before the potluck was due to start, I heard a lady say, "I noticed that this lemonade had already been opened, and I was worried about it. Then I realized what color it is, and that it was opened so that the person could put food coloring in it!"

And I was like, "Yeah, I mean, what's so sinister about opened lemonade, anyways?" Then it occurred to me that the lady probably was probably worrying that the lemonade was spiked. Because St. Patrick's Day. Awkward.

My only question was if she noticed that the Sprite was also opened? And also green? Sprite bottles are already green, so I suspect she did not realize. Bit of a shock for whoever poured the first glass.