"Hey Patty" — St. Patrick's Day, Bus Boys, and Speaking Up

Theo Von opens his St. Patrick's Day episode with a memory of a girl named Patty from his childhood. Her parents didn't let her do much, but she was in charge of bringing the garbage cans out to the curb. She'd get dressed up, put on her mama's lipstick, and lug those cans out. Theo and his friends would call out "Hey Patty" to be sweet to her, and she'd smile so big the lipstick ended up on her earlobes. "There's something nice about that," he says, "seeing somebody get joyed out."

Who Saint Patrick Actually Was

Theo looks up Saint Patrick on Perplexity and reads aloud: a fifth-century Christian missionary and bishop, born in Britain, captured by Irish raiders at sixteen, enslaved for six years herding animals, escaped, trained for ministry, then returned to Ireland to preach, baptize, found churches, and ordain clergy. "Dang, he was that dog," Theo says. "He was that Lord dog." The famous story about driving snakes out of Ireland is a legend — there's no evidence Ireland had native snakes after the last ice age. Theo finds the real story more impressive: a man who was enslaved, escaped, then voluntarily went back to the people who enslaved him to change the culture.

Checking In on the Magnet