When the folks at 23andMe give you permission to be more Irish than you thought

For many years, St. Patrick's Day never seemed especially relevant to me. I know it's the day when we're all supposed to be Irish, but biologically speaking, I figured I was English, Scottish, German, and not much else.

Wearing green and walking around with a shillelagh in one hand and a Guinness in the other seemed a tad inauthentic.

Then, a couple of years ago, at my request, Terry got me a 23andMe genetic testing kit for Christmas. I sent off a dollop of spit to their labs and eagerly opened my ancestry report weeks later when it arrived via email.

I am no geneticist, so I can't speak to the accuracy of these mass-market, saliva-based tests. I hear and read good things, but the results are sometimes so precise as to evoke a level of skepticism.

I choose to believe the 23andMe test is reliable, though, if only because I like what the results had to say.

Yes, I am mostly English. And yes, there's indubitably some German blood in me, thanks to my maternal grandmother, one Ms. Bertha Spitznogel.

I was surprised to have Swiss and French roots, as well.

What really caught my eye, though, is that I'm 47.9% "British & Irish." When you break that down further by region, I'm classified as a "Highly Likely Match" for both "Galway and Central Ireland" and "Central and Southern Ireland," not to mention being a "Likely Match" for "Central and Northern Ireland" and "Northern Ireland and Central Scottish Lowlands."

Well, top of the mornin', kiss the Blarney Stone, and keep your hands off me Lucky Charms! Who knew?

Of course, I don't know exactly how much of my ancestry is Irish, but it's apparently more than the <0.1% I originally assumed. And that whole thing about me being of Scottish origin? Maybe not so much.

With St. Patrick's Day now just 48 hours away, I feel much more justified laying some small claim to the holiday. Maybe I'll sip a green beer on Sunday and listen to Irish pipe bands.

The English side of me will hate it, of course, but I can shut down that part of my brain for one day, at least.

I'll never be Rollie Fingers

There are two perfectly good reasons why I don't have facial hair:

(1) The whiskers tend to come in unevenly. They're much heavier under my chin and cheeks than they are on my actual face.

(2) My wife doesn't want me to have facial hair. She doesn't like the feel of it. This alone is more than enough to keep me from growing a beard or mustache, if you know what I'm saying. And I think you do.

I don't come from a line of facial hair growers anyway. My brother had a 70s moustache back in, well, the 70s. And my dad had a thicker one on and off over the last 20 years of his life. But no beards or anything like that. I'm just not sure we could pull it off.

Consequently, I've never grown any sort of facial hair. I've never even really tried. Well, when I was in China for two weeks several years ago, I did have the very beginnings of a goatee (or what people often mistakenly call a goatee...it's really a Van Dyke), but even after five days it was pretty pitiful. Over time I may be able to sprout one of those Amish-inspired beard-with-no-moustache jobs, but that would just be sad.

In some ways, I admire guys who can -- and do -- easily grow facial hair. My friend Rob Wanska is one of those guys. If Rob happens to be clean-shaven, he's only about 6 or 7 hours away from a pretty good beard, if he wants one. Seriously, I'll bet he could grow a pencil-thin moustache in eight minutes. I don't know what nationality he is, but it's probably one of those hirsute ethnic cultures in which beards are a sign of manliness. Like American Yeti.

I'm always reminded of my shortcomings in the hairy face department this time of year because the National Hockey League playoffs have started. As you may know, it's a tradition in the NHL to grow a playoff beard. Guys refuse to shave until their team is eliminated from the playoffs or wins the Stanley Cup. By late May, some of them look like homeless people on skates.

Then there are the others who are more like me. It's always great fun to watch the blonde-haired, 19-year-old rookies try to grow playoff beards. Their team keeps on winning and gets deep into the playoffs, and by the conference finals you can just start to make out the hint of what may or may not be construed as a moustache on their upper lips. Forget the beard, these guys are just trying to reach 'stache-hood.

Speaking of moustaches and sports, you don't really see a lot of good ones on athletes these days. The best of all time may have been Rollie Fingers, one of the great relief pitchers in the history of baseball. Rollie, as you can see here, had a handlebar moustache. I desperately want a handlebar moustache. But it won't happen.

Aside from the restrictions mentioned above, there's just the everyday maintenance of something like a handlebar moustache. I'm no expert, but I assume that some sort of daily waxing and/or combing is involved, and that's a real hassle in addition to being borderline repulsive.

But if I did have a handlebar moustache, I would be tempted to speak in a consistent 1890s Irish brogue:

ME: Top o' the mawrnin', to you, my little ones! And how are each of ya on this fine day?

MY KIDS: Huh? What? Are you talking to us?

ME: Of course I be! Why, it's a special treat to greet me offspring after each has arisen from his bed!

MY KIDS: What's wrong with you? Why are you talking like that? And does mom know you have that thing on your lip?

I like to imagine it would go a little better than that, but in any case, I would still totally sound like the Lucky Charms leprechaun if I could manage a 'stache like Rollie's.

Every once in awhile I'll skip a day of shaving, usually on the weekend. It takes Terry about 3 milliseconds to notice. "Nice to see you, Grizzly Adams," she'll say to me, as if I'm Rob and the minuscule whiskers that are struggling to gain traction on my face are significantly more prominent than normal.

But the message is clear: Shave it off. Shave it off now. In an effort to maintain some sort of pride and semblance of control, I usually wait an extra few hours and THEN I'll shave it off. No woman is going to tell ME what to do with my manly facial hair.