The Luck of the Irish

Introduction and Background
I've never been sure, really, about the origins of this phrase, "the luck of the Irish." I've heard stories of Irish perseverance and survival during times of catastrophic potato-based tragedies and enviable wealth from otherwise haphazard mining. There's also the possibility of facetious roots stemming from the centuries old battles between Protestants and Catholics, and the Irish Republic south and Queen owned north. Regardless, one thing is for sure, the luck of the Irish does not extend its hand of marshmallow fortune trinkets to men of Mediterranean decent while celebrating commercialized Irish holidays. I was not lucky yesterday, my friends. In fact, I was statistically quite possibly the most unlucky man in the whole of the Chicagoland area, and here is my story.

Pregame Play by Play
St. Patrick's Day weekend (despite not actually containing within it the Day of St. Patrick) is a magnificent time of celebration in Chicago. I did my part in contributing to the day's debauchery. I started out with a big breakfast of American cheese on eggs with hash browns, and toast, and my friend's hash browns, and most of her toast (she ate the crusts). I then began my Lord of the Rings-esque journey through the city's west side with green apparel on my back, green accessories ornamenting my dome, and satchel of hardtack for sustenance as I fight the legion of Orcs. I drank countless cheap beers and genuinely enjoyed the company of a handful of friends for several hours. Went to the park, went to a couple bars, you know, the usual. Then, like a gem falling from the emerald sky, I met a lass that I hoped would bring out the luck in my Irish spirit.

Let Failure Ring
My friend's girlfriend's sister came and met up with us at a bar and brought her hair stylist. This hair stylist, let's call her Chloe (the most common female Irish name in 1999, not that she's even Irish, but whatever). I asked to buy her a drink. Rather than getting a PBR for $2 like the rest of us, she wanted a whisky and ginger ale. I made the mistake of asking her what kind of whiskey, and of course she wanted Jameson (this cost me $7). After attempting to flirt with her for a couple of hours, she asked me if I wanted to go across town to see the Black Lips with her. I was hesitant at first. This would require quite a bit of money and quite a bit of time for questionable results. Consultation with the friends I was with convinced me to go along for the ride.

Half way to the bus, Chloe's friend calls and informs her that the show is sold out, thus ruining our plans, but saving me $15 or so. Chloe then tells me that all is well, and that she has a bottle of whisky at home and we can just hang out. I've never been asked to hang out over a bottle of whisky by a slight minx in my life. By my mental social math, I deduced that I was on the right track. Right?

So we go to her apartment. She lives alone. I make us some drinks. I drink my whisky with 7-up, she has hers with ice which is both intimidating but also quite likely the most attractive thing a small unassuming woman can do to win my heart (pretty much the exact opposite of what my mother would like to hear, but she doesn't know how to use computers, so I'm not very worried about this tendency getting back to her). An hour goes by. She laughs at my jokes, casually runs into me a couple times as we walk around the small apartment. Insists on sitting on that spot on the couch which forces the other person (me in this case) to sit right next to her. My torn jeans right up next to her green spandex (she was wearing orange spandex, but changed into the green ones right in front of me for festive purposes).

Things sound ok, right? She gets a phone call and proceeds to flirt in a way that puts any game I may drunkenly think I have to shame. When the conversation was over, I mention how well the phone call seemed to have gone. She informs me that the GIRL on the other end is SO CUTE, and goes on to say how she totally thinks she has a chance with her. My testicles then gathered their things and proceeded to ascend back into my body. I waited about 5 minutes before I asked her if she was a lesbian, so as to not raise suspicion. She claimed to, in fact, be totally into women, not men, not boys, not anything that I am, but women, girls, people with mammary glands, people with ovaries, people with bangs. I continued flirting with her for a few more minutes before asking if there was any point in flirting with her at all, at which point she unambiguously went to the other side of the room and told me I had absolutely no chance of accomplishing anything close to the teenage fantasy my mind had knotted together over the previous several hours.

Statistical Analysis of Leprechaun Trickery and Lesbian Audacity
Rather than leave right away, I hung around for a bit, then excused myself claiming to be exhausted due to the hours of drinking I had endured during the day. They say 10% of the human population is gay. I'll go ahead and say that 10% of women are extremely attractive. I'll further assume, for the sake of statistics, that about half the time, I can tell if a woman is gay after talking to her for a few minutes. I will further assume that about 2% of the women in this country are willing to invite me to their apartments to consume whisky upon first meeting me. With all of this in mind, what happened list night was a 1 in 500 sort of thing.

There were 499 ways for last night to have ended a different way, but of course, with the luck of the Irish, I managed to secure for my resume the experiencing of the most awkward uncomfortable form of going home alone and insecure possible.

I was bamboozled by a lesbian leprechaun last night, and for this I will never trust the trickery of the Irish or the miserably adorable winks of hair stylists.

Conclusion
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, can't blame a guy for trying.