Saturday's Surprise: Open The Envelop...

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Registered: 03-25-2003
Saturday's Surprise: Open The Envelop...
8
Sat, 03-16-2002 - 9:50am

Saturday's Surprise: Open The Envelope (m)


In honor of St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow, this week write a short story (as long or short as your wee little heart desires) with an Irish theme. So let’s the leprechauns leap and the shamrocks shine!!!

Happy writing,

Mac

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Sun, 03-17-2002 - 1:22pm

My SS: Happy St. Patrick's Day (m)


Have you ever had one of those days when you get to work and discover that you painted one cheek with brown blush and the other cheek with pink? Well, I knew St. Patrick’s Day 2002 was going to be one of those days.

As I struggled to open the front door and answer the ringing phone, my key broke off in the lock. Luckily for me, I had dated the local locksmith when we were in high school so he rushed over to help me. Once inside, I gave him an O’Malley’s Bar t-shirt and free beer on the house.

The usual customers trickled in and I kept busy tending the bar while Jamie took care of the table customers and Kirk handled the kitchen.

“That blood-sucking bastard knew something!” the older man shouted, as I positioned two beers in front of him.

“Right! He knew to go with Duke. They were number one seed in the tournament, “ the other one said, chugging the remainder of his draft pilsner of Killian Red.

“Aye. You know I couldn’t go against the Irish.”

“But Notre Dame didn’t have a chance, Uncle Mike, so there’s no use in you getting mad at Charlie. You gonna have to pay up.”

“Bite your tongue, lad. The Irish are always lucky,” said the older man.

The sun glinted through the stained-glass doors as another customer entered the bar. I watched him make his way to the south end of the bar, and then climbed onto a stool.

“What do you have, mister?” I asked.

“How about a shot of Tullamore’s Dew?” he responded.

I looked around and surveyed the row of whiskey bottles. “I’m sorry, that’s not a brand I carry. Another choice?”

He frowned. “Make it a shot of Bushmill then.”

Smiling, I said to him, “That we have.” After pouring the whiskey, I slide the glass in front of him.

“I spend a lot of hours in here. I actually just came by to tell the old fellow who runs this place good-bye.”

Wiping down the counter, I said, “My dad’s enjoying Marlin fishing in Cabo this week. He’s officially retired now.” I excused myself and walked down to the first two gentlemen I’d served.

“Would you happen to have a phone I could use? Looks like my cell phone battery has died?” the younger man said.

As I slid the phone across the counter. “You can use the bar phone as long as it’s not to call your bookie.”

“No,” he smiled. “I’m calling the delivery room waiting lounge to see if my wife has had the baby yet.

“How pleasant that you chose to wait here,” I said sarcastically.

He returned an unfriendly grin as he dialed the number.

When I looked back the man who’d asked about my dad was gone, leaving only an empty glass and five-dollar bill.

I slid the money into the drawer and made my way to the ringing phone.

“Top of the mornin’ to you,” my dad shouted from the other end of the phone.

“Happy St. Patrick’s Day! How are you feeling, daddy?”

“Oh, not so bar. Nothing that a shot of Tullamore’s couldn’t cure.”

My mind drifted back to the man who’d asked about him. “Well, I’ll tell you the same thing as the man who’d requested it an hour ago. You’re outta luck, buddy.”

“What man?”

“Oh, we had a customer come in earlier who asked for it; asked for you too, as a matter of fact.”

After describing him to my father, right down to the jacket he was wearing an old mustard and black houndstooth tweed. A chill ran down my spine when my father told me that the man had died several years back. Dad claimed his death had made headline news: LSU’s Star Player for the 1955 NCAA Champion Team Dies in Train Accident.”

“Must of not been him then,” I joked as we said our good-byes.

“Did either of you see that gentleman leave?” I asked the two men who were still bickering over the basketball scores.

“What man?” Oh that wacko that said LSU was going win?” the older man said, laughing. “They’re not even in the tournament. Where’s he been?”

Hanging up the phone, the younger one announced, “We need to get our check. Looks like I’m about to become the proud father of a baby boy.”

“How nice. What name have you picked out?”

“My wife’s got her mind set on Ian Sean but I’m leaning towards Patrick James.”

The older man holds his glass in the air. “Most fitting for a lad who’s born on St. Patrick’s Day. A toast: St. Patrick was a gentleman who through strategy and stealth drove all the snakes from Ireland. Here’s a toasting to his health; But not too many toastings lest you lose yourself and then forget the good St. Patrick and see all those snakes again.”

Visitor (not verified)
anonymous user
Sun, 03-17-2002 - 7:46pm

Bang on the theme...


Good list of Irish names and beverages. I like female barkeeps, guess I just like the idea. Why do you suppose that fellow from LSU popped by the bar? Coincidence, hmmm. Eerie.

One thing - how did the narrator contact the locksmith guy? Did she get the door open before her key broke?

A local brew pub had quite the rockin party last night, green everywhere. Much tamer this afternoon ;-)

Eyewrite

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Sun, 03-17-2002 - 9:36pm

Here's a green beer for you (m)


Well, you how you’re thinking one thing and then when it’s put down on paper you skip some stuff? I think that’s what happened to me here :-) I was trying to imply the fellow from LSU was a ghost dropping by to tell the man who owned the bar (the female barkeep’s father) goodbye. Sort of like the soul passing from the old to the young (the baby boy about to be born). Also with the locksmith thing, I forgot to mention she called him from her cell phone.

Sounds like you had a fun St. Patty’s Day!!!

Mac

Visitor (not verified)
anonymous user
Mon, 03-18-2002 - 12:28pm

On a Monday: May he die roaring (m)


At 4am a series of sirens woke me and visions of leprechauns danced in my head, daring me to write something for the Saturday Suprise, however late. Here's what we came up with.

Eyewrite

************************************************************

May he die roaring

I haven’t had a date in over ten years. I’m straight, but both men and women show interest in me. That’s alarming, I know, but I still feel sad because these people are not interested in me for me.

They want my money.

Old Cormac, he knows my pain. He ran a successful potato farm. His staff of hundreds produced more potatoes than the rest of Kildare combined. He papered the walls in his home with gold, so the legend goes. Slim, fat, lined, and unlined lasses wooed him with their feminine wiles. They treated him to a year’s supply of free ale at the pub, took him on holiday to Swansea, and offered erotic massages. They tried to trap him into marriage by claiming he was the Da to their unborn Mac or Inion. Sometimes he believed them, wed, and supported entire families of bastard children. Other times he wrote them a cheque and gave them a one-way ticket to Morocco. I hear that Casablanca is half-filled with these women.

Then there’s sweet Lady Selia of Dunmanway, left a fortune by her Daideo, because she was the only one to visit him daily and wash his feet. Her cousins sickened at the thought, but Selia didn’t mind, as her grandfather had two false legs, so his feet bore no smell. Men of hairy chests and bare pursued her, took her to their family’s lochs in Scotland for vacation, and promised her a life of luxury and an absence of foot-washing. Unlucky for them, Selia preferred those males with artificial limbs, the more artificial material the more arousing for her. Rumor has it after four in the afternoon she likes to remove the limbs and store them in her china closet, rendering the man immobile until ten the following morning.

My caras gave me the names of dating services, but I failed to meet the minimum height requirement and my address didn’t register in their Ballinlough maps. I refuse to be videotaped proclaiming my virtues and assets, because I believe that the camera takes away my spirit. I also despise the ten pounds the camera adds. At my size, ten pounds is like ten elephants strapped to my behind.

I prefer long nights at home in my Carnlough, working leather with my tiny hammer by candlelight and fantasizing about the nymph who seeks me for my true self. And to all who seek my pot of gold, I curse: May you be afflicted with the itch and have no nails to scratch with!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Mon, 03-18-2002 - 7:58pm

Great job! (m)


And Selia’s washing Grandpa’s wooden feet and her fetish with prosthetics was a hoot! I also loved the narrator talking about the dating service.

Funny story,

Mac

Visitor (not verified)
anonymous user
Mon, 03-18-2002 - 9:18pm

Glad you liked it...


I tell you, I don't know where these ideas come from, lol.

Thanks for reading, Eyewrite

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Tue, 03-19-2002 - 10:25am

Nice one mac.(nt)


cl-ozarker

"We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master." - Ernest Heminway

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Tue, 03-19-2002 - 10:32am

ROFL eyewrite. I loved it.(nt)


cl-ozarker

"We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master." - Ernest Heminway

Visitor (not verified)
anonymous user
Tue, 03-19-2002 - 1:58pm

Thanks, Linda! (nt)


Avatar for portraitinflesh
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Tue, 03-19-2002 - 3:36pm

what day is it again?


Big house rearranging project over the weekend, so here it is, late and all.

Ramona

===

Mary Katherine’s mother Mary Margaret had always taken great pride in the fact that her mother’s people had come from Ireland. “God’s Own Garden,” Mary Margaret was fond of saying.

Looking at the steel gray sky, Mary Katherine could understand why they had left. The chilling rain had let up slightly within the last half hour, leaving a slick film of moisture over everything. The rain seemed to have washed away all color, blurring and smearing edges in the distance.

“Ireland certainly never looked like this in those Irish Spring commercials,” Mary Katherine thought to herself. Mary Margaret was sitting beside her in their rental car, looking down at her map and saying that they weren’t far from their destination, the little town of Greater Goat, where Mary Katherine’s grandmother had been born.

The rental car’s defroster apparently only worked when it wanted to. Rolling down the windows had helped clear the windshield slightly, but Mary Katherine found herself squinting as she tried her best to maneuver the muddy holes in the narrow goat path that doubled as a road.

Mary Katherine had heard her mother praise Ireland for as long as she could remember. So for her 50th birthday Mary Katherine surprised her mother with tickets to Ireland. Mary Margaret normally would have refused to go anywhere near an airplane, but she couldn’t pass up an opportunity to visit God’s Own Garden.

And now that mother and daughter had returned to the land of their ancestors, it seemed as if the only things growing in God’s Own Garden were mud puddles.

“There it is!” Mary Margaret gasped when she saw the sign reading Greater Goat. Mary Katherine pulled the rental car into a parking space in front of what seemed to be the town’s only pub.

Mary Katherine walked in before her mother. The only other person in the pub was an older man. Mary Katherine thought he looked like what her cousin George would look like in about another 45 years.

“Oh, it’s you, Mary Margaret!” he said in a musical brogue. “Knew you’d be coming in, I did. Colleen, bring out the cake, girl.”

Colleen, who was close to 70, came out of the back carrying a small frosted cake.

Mary Katherine and Mary Margaret were too astonished to say anything.

“I’m your distant cousin Peter Patrick. This here is my Colleen. We knew you’d be coming by for a visit. Miss Maudie never lies about these things.”

Mary Katherine and Mary Margaret sat at the small table where Colleen had placed the cake.

“Miss Maudie’s gifted with the Sight,” Peter Patrick said. He picked up a thin newspaper and waved it at Mary Katherine.

The headline shouted out “I caught AIDS from the Blarney Stone!” in vivid red ink.

“Miss Maudie said I’d recognize you anywhere, Mary Margaret, because you look just like my old auntie Mary Ellen used to.”

Mary Margaret began eating the cake. Mary Katherine smiled and took a slice as well.

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