St. Patrick's Day

[jinian]

A strange old man muttered very quietly and started pinching my shoulder this morning on the bus. I was very much taken aback, but managed a quiet "Stop that." From his reaction (further muttering and great expression of pathos, but he stopped immediately) I assume that the unuttered "What on earth do you think you're doing?" addendum was perceptible.

Two classes into the day, I realized that it had probably been because I'm not wearing any green today. I still don't feel particularly bad for the old man, though.

The odd thing is, Eli had never heard of the risk of pinching on St. P's for not wearing green. I think this warrants an educational poll. Please do answer, in comments if you don't like clicky things, because I'm really curious.
[Poll #264712]


Google's pretty today.

Comments

[tiassa]

I could understand the pinching thing when I was in elementary school, since we would pinch each other on ordinary days as well. I think that once my age was measured in double digits, though, the "tradition" should have been left behind. Fortunately, now that I'm an adult, pinching tends to fall into the realm of sexual harassment so I don't have to worry about it at work, and it's not like I go anywhere else. So.

Also, I agree Google looks really nice today. My Google toolbar redecorated itself in pink hearts for Valentine's day and I resented that, but I don't get pretty green knotwork today? Pah.

[cheesepuppet.livejournal.com]

Did Eli spend his childhood in Africa or something?

[jinian.livejournal.com]

That's the weird part, he's lived more places than I have.

[cheesepuppet.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh! He's an alien! This is a sure sign of human cultural slippage!

I always knew his jeans were too cool to be made by human hands. It's that alien dexterity. And the whole love of photography is just a ploy so that he can look CLOSELY at LOTS of things without drawing too much attention to himself.

[rubricity.livejournal.com]

Basically it depends on if you know they're ok with such a silly thing or not and, also, if you don't pinch them in their extra tender spots.

But, even if you know them, and you're not certain they're ok with being pinched than no.

Now I need to go put my cabbage in with the corned beef. :)

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

I read about the pinching thing in someone else's LJ today. I don't recall ever hearing that before (if I did, I'd forgotten).

It's very rude to do it to someone you don't know. With someone whom one normally does playful jokey things that can involve touch it might be okay--really depends on the person and one's typical interactions with them.

[linenoise.livejournal.com]

I think that it's terribly rude, but that in particular company it's okay to be rude, s'long as you know them well enough to know that they'll take it in good fun, rather than offense. So if I was hanging out with close friends or family, I'd probably pinch somebody, and/or expect to be pinched.

But never some random guy on a bus.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

Someone brought up the idea of "pinching if you aren't earing green" one year when I was in elementary school. Several of us added the codicil "...and anyone who pinches you gets a punch in the face", which put a stop to that crap pretty quickly.

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

It was an elementary school thing.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

We do not, fwiw, do this in Ireland. zorinth coming home and mentioning it to us a couple of days ago was the first I had heard of it.

[coyotegirl.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of it until I moved to Seattle (and even then, only in the last couple of years).