St. Patrick’s Day: Coat or No Coat?

It’s a magical time of year across the country and especially in Chicago. St. Patrick’s Day Saturday is only days away and I’m excited like waking up to the smell of bacon.

We are all faced with a big dilemma this St. Patrick’s Day Saturday: To wear a coat or to not wear a coat? There are a ton of factors and thoughts that go into answering this question.

We all start off with the same framework and thought process: “I’m about to drink my face off for 10 hours like I’m a freshman in college…”

This precursory statement has many scenarios that can unfold, seen or unseen, that will have repercussions on whether you wake up on Sunday with your coat. One scenario being that you decide to wear a coat, which is great for when you are outside, but at some point you are gonna be indoors and have to take it off and set it down. Holding onto or wearing your coat all day isn’t an option.

(Note: the best St. Patrick’s Day outfits/costumes take this into consideration and if you planned your attire more than 24 hours in advance you might have put together an ensemble that includes a green something that’s warmer than a sweatshirt but not a ski jacket.)

Setting your coat down at a house party is pretty harmless. The risk of it getting lost or stolen is less than 3%. The risk climbs another 3% if it’s a house party where you don’t know the host. This is just a strangers tax.

The problem becomes when you inevitably head to the bar (or if you start there). Now the strangers tax jumps up another 5% because there’s a lot more of them and there’s a 100% chance they are wasted. That brings you up to about an 11% chance that you won’t be going home with your coat at the end of St. Patrick’s partying.

Up until this point the negative consequences for wearing a coat is predicated on strangers. Now we need to factor in the likelihood of something happening to your coat because of your wasted ass. Many of stories have started with, “I planned on taking it easy” and ended up like Frank the Tank streaking down the street. At the beginning of the night Frank didn’t anticipate bonging any beer because he had a big day at Home Depot planned. Just one turned into one more which brought the Tank out and turned into him going home with no clothes. If you think that just because you are taking it easy means you’ll end up with your coat, think again.

I assume that many of you who are reading this are seasoned veteran’s so “I’m taking it easy” on St. Patrick’s Day weekend wasn’t an option to begin with. I think we all know what we are in for so this is where you have to think about how much of a train wreck you become after you drink for 5+ straight hours.

Losing a coat typically doesn’t happen when you are one hour in to your St. Patrick’s Day festivities (unless the 1% of the 3% stranger tax is somehow at your party and ready to start being a bad human right out of the gates.) Most of us just don’t wake up and somehow lose our coat. As you continue to drink more green beer, though, you become a bit happier and more carefree. Queue J-Kwon’s Tipsy.

Once hour three of your partying hits then you almost need to create a buddy system where you and a friend look out for each others coats. Sometimes one brain just isn’t enough, especially on St. Patrick’s Day weekend in Chicago. Maybe you are preoccupied trying to get an Uber and figure out if it’s worth paying a 3.5x surcharge to get you to the bar or maybe you are finishing up a 4-game win streak at Beer Pong and on an emotional high thinking about nothing but victory. There’s plenty of scenarios that all come in to play in hours 3-5 that you are only partially to blame due to thinking about something else.

Between hours 5-10, however, is where you start to become a much bigger liability to yourself and your coat. The likelihood of shots increases by 75% which increases your stupidity factor by 200% and increases 50% upon every additional shot. Throw in the continual drinking of green beer and 8 hours in you are dealing with a potential stupidity factor of about 500%. On top of that you have to increase the stranger tax to account for their stupidity up to 22%. That means between your own stupidity, strangers, stranger stupidity, and your buddy system friend just disappearing or chasing an 8 that’s really just a St. Patrick’s Day 5 the odds of somehow ending the night with no coat is a legit 40%.

So for a 40% chance of losing your coat you can stay warm on St. Patrick’s Day Saturday and not have to be one of those people that complains about how cold Chicago is and how you can’t wait for Spring to get here. Instead you get to party comfortably.

If you are a weather optimist who’s ready to embrace any rays of sunlight as if all rays of sun are equal, then not having the mental burden of having to account for your coat is the option for you.

For one, you are going to look way more badass in photos than the people wearing coats. Combine that with the fact that you thought about what you were going to wear for St. Patrick’s Day (Everyone who see the leprechaun say yeah!) and you want to make sure that you are stylin & profilin at all times. Sure it’s only a high of 29 but when play flip cup in the sun it’s at least 40 and in Chicago terms that’s damn near North Avenue beach weather.

True veterans will just bring a thin pair of gloves with them, which does a great job of fending off the chill and giving a temporary warm up. Of course there’s a 70% chance that you’ll lose or stop caring about those gloves but oh well. Winter is virtually over and you can just get a new pair next year.

In years past I’ve been a coat guy and am proud to say that I’ve never lost one. I bought a Dana Barros Celtics jersey specifically so that I could wear a jersey on St. Patrick’s Day weekend this year. Because of this I think that I’m going to opt to wear no coat so as to maximize the amount of dap I get.

Are you going coat or no coat this St. Patrick’s Day weekend? Give me a shout on Instagram or Twitter @BaconSports and send over a pic.