Creamy Irish Cuisine

by Luke Homans

Allow me to paint a picture for you.

It is March 3rd, 2022.

You are cruising down the interstate at a speed somewhere between eighty and one hundred miles per hour. Your head is swirling with anxieties, constantly battling existential dread and the motivation for your existence. As you begin to approach one of the characteristic American highway interchanges filled with nothing but concrete, gas stations, and chain restaurants, your focus shifts for a second to the glorious golden arches that adorn nearly every abomination of civil engineering such as this one. Upon brief consideration of this sighting, you come to realize the significance of the aforementioned date. For it is naught but this time of year that one may be able to purchase a nauseatingly green mint-adjacent ice cream beverage ‘neath the yellow M. A carnal instinct awakens inside you, one that can only be satiated by the forgotten nectar that is the limited time only! Shamrock Shake® syrup blended into creamy vanilla soft serve. As you move to the far right lane to take the exit, a hunched figure perched atop the gaudy sign catches your eye. As you draw nearer, you are able to make out the nature of the creature: an incredibly handsome gremlin-like winged beast, forest green, furiously masturbating in full view of the world.

Due to the common and insignificant nature of such a sight, and for the mere sake of being polite, your gaze and attention once again shifts to the sweet treat that has become a temporary distraction from the monotony that is your continuous existence in this consumerist hellscape.

Upon entering the drive thru, your prayers shift to the benevolent gods of the often less than functional ice cream machines, hoping that you may be spared from the misfortune of disappointment; your aspirations shattered, your spirit left broken.

Today it appears that the Irish smile down upon you, as your request for a seasonal milkshake is granted, for the small price of 4.29 (plus tax), and a slight fondling from Ronald McDonald himself as his grubby gloved hand gently removes the money from your pocket.

Upon the reception of your viscous beverage, your heart leaps with excitement, hardly able to remember your last experience twelve long months ago. This lapse of memory proves to be your undoing, as you find the concoction to be somewhat sickly-sweet, somehow managing to taste neither like mint nor ice cream; rather, as if the mint leaves had been violently drowned in a bath of high-fructose corn syrup, causing a flavor that manages only to resemble the unsettling bright green color that it bears, leaving only an odd burning aftertaste in the back of your throat; you shrug, coming to the conclusion that this must simply be what shamrocks taste like, and you continue on your journey, once again burdened with the weight of your consciousness, never to give it a second thought.

Oh, but it is far deeper than that my friend.

Remember the hunched, self-stimulating, animal-like figure perched atop the infamous yellow sign that you shrugged off as an insignificant occurrence? Well I sure do. I remember it like I was there, almost as if I, in a way, was. You see, that creature was no ordinary gremlin, but of course our very own dear mascot the Gargoyle.

Well, at the very least, do you remember the milkshake you just recently consumed? Remember the sickly taste that still somehow managed to leave an acidic feeling upon the soft flesh of your pharynx? While you may struggle to understand this juxtaposition of sensations, I can explain them with ease.

You see, come the end of winter, our beloved green representative flies all over the world, ejaculating into a hidden tube built into every set of golden asscheeks. Without his noble work, this St. Patrick’s day corporate tradition would never have even left the ground, and a dessert with such taste and color would never have graced the lips of billions worldwide.

So by the time next year rolls around and you find yourself craving a temporary distraction from the endless cycle of discomfort that we call life, and you once again recall the characteristic color and flavor of such a delicacy and find yourself slightly put off by the bizarre aftertaste, just remember (for once in your goddamn life); that’s exactly where that taste belongs:

deep inside your throat.