St. Patrick's Day 2009

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Our friend, MaryJo, is from Ireland. In case you don't know, an Irish friend equals a kick-ass St. Patrick's Day.

Heck yes. We got the hook-ups.

Patrice's House

Even though it's a week night, we deck ourselves in green and head over to MaryJo's Irish friends' house to have some food and drinks before we go out. Patrice, whose house we are at, cooks up some sausages and beans and dishes up salad for dinner. Her boyfriend, who also lives there, informs us that the house is under renovations at the moment. (Even though the absence of walls and the presence of plywood everywhere make that obvious.)

Dinner is delicious, and we top it off with green beer and other green mixed drinks. Apparently, there's some pop band in the UK called "Girls on Tour", and when MaryJo says something about them, Jodi nearly sprays green beer out her nose from laughing. "MaryJo!" she coughs and laughs. "The way you said that with your Irish accent, it sounded like Girls on Tuuurrr."

"Well how do you say it?" she asks.

Jodi replies in her posh London accent, "Girls on Tor."

They then ask me to say it in my Tennessee accent. "Girls on Tew-er."

We laugh and decide we like MaryJo's the best. "Let's have a toast!" Jodi shouts, raising her green glass. "To all of us, Girls on Tuuuurrr!" She growls that last word. We join in, yelling and growling, "Girls on Tuuuurrrrrr!"

After we've all freshened up a bit in the bathrooms, we pile into the back of James' white van, which has no windows or seats in the back. It's the van he uses for his construction work, and it's totally illegal for us to be in the back of it. We joke about how James actually uses the van for his kidnappings. We dance around as best we can and laugh and sing along to the radio.

The Black Swan

Once at the pub, the Black Swan, I notice that we are the only non-Irish people, the only women, and the only people under 40. Everyone stares as we walk to the bar to order drinks. Once they hear MaryJo, Patrice, and James talking, the locals decide that Jodi, Deanna, and I are one of the group. The way I figure it, we're all Irish on St. Patrick's Day.

We order drinks, laugh about the old men who flirt with us, and take loads of pictures. Once the bar has properly filled up, I spot a good-looking guy at the other end of the bar. He looks about my age. I watch him as he talks with a few other people, but he appears to be alone tonight. We make eye contact, and I smile at him. He smiles back with a quick, little nod. He's definitely not English, I decide. English men never smile and flirt with me.

The bartender asks me if I mind taking around a tray of sandwiches. "Everyone will eat them if a pretty girl is holding them," he says. I'm happy to oblige! Sure enough, everyone is digging the sandwiches, and the old men drop flirty comments as I pass by. I laugh and swing my hips as I walk.

I saunter up to the good-looking guy at the other end of the bar. "Sandwich?" I ask.

"Sure," he says, reaching for one while smiling at me. "Where are you from?"

"America," I say, smiling bigger.

"Wow, America? What in the world are you doing here?"

I laugh, "I'm a teacher here."

We chat for a couple minutes and I learn that his name is Davey, then I make my exit, claiming that I have to take the sandwich tray around. As the night wears on, he comes up to talk to me another time. Again, I flirt with him and chat for about 10 minutes, then I leave him to go dance or talk to Jodi or something like that. He's definitely interested.

Deanna pulls me aside. "Alicia, you need to watch it with him."

"What? Why?"

"He and MaryJo used to have a thing going on."

"Really? He went out with MaryJo?"

"Well...they didn't go out, but they hooked up from time to time, ya know. She really liked him, though, and wanted it to be more. She used to cry and cry over him. She recently made herself delete his number from her phone."

"Oh geez," I say. So Davey is off-limits.

The party slowly gets more and more wild. The DJ is playing Irish songs, which makes all the Irish folks go crazy with pride for their country. They stand on tables, singing loudly to every word, waving flags, and practically moshing with each other. Everyone is completely drunk. Jodi finds some twenty-year-old Irish boy who tells me he's Australian, and I believe him for like the whole night. He and Jodi dance up on each other and make out. He stumbles up to me and Deanna at one point and says, "Where are you from?"

"America," Deanna says.

"Wow!" he says. "What are you doing here?"

"Teaching."

"Oh OK. You know how most Americans aren't that smart?" he begins.

"No, I don't know," retorts Deanna. "Because that's not even true."

"Well wait," he slurs. "That's not what I meant. I just meant that you don't know much about the world."

Deanna gets more pissed off. I crack up, because he's digging himself into a hole, and Deanna is yelling at him.

Davey comes up to talk to me again. As we talk, I glance around and see MaryJo dancing wildly with some other Irish girls. I figure she's too busy to notice, so I stand there and talk to Davey and he buys me a beer. He's my age, a self-employed plumber. He's easily the cutest guy in the entire bar.

Suddenly, MaryJo is in front of us. She's saying something to Davey, but I can't hear over the music. She's obviously drunk and retorting some sarcastic comment, because Davey is getting upset. They argue, while I look around for an excuse to leave. I decide to look for Jodi.

Jodi is outside, smoking. We decide we're ready to leave, so Jodi calls a taxi.

Abdul, the Taxi Man! We wind up with this driver that Jodi has used before, an old Indian man. Jodi jokingly flirts with him, saying thinks like, "Abdul, did I just hear you ask me to marry you?"

He'd laugh, "No, hahahaha."

"Abdul, don't tease me like that," she'd say. "You shouldn't break a girl's heart that way."

He'd just laugh and laugh.

Then we started singing (to the tune of B-I-N-G-O), "There was a little taxi man, and Abdul was his name-O. A-B-D-U-L! A-B-D-U-L! A-B-D-U-L and Abdul was his name-O!!"

The little Indian just drove on, smiling, while 4 girls were screaming/singing songs about him. I laughed so hard, I could hardly sing.

Bar #2

The next place we go is filled with drunk 16-year-olds, stumbling around, asking me if they look over 18. I figured the bartenders must not have cared about their age. In America, it's much harder to serve alcohol to underage people because the penalty is so steep. I guess in England, it's more like a slap on the wrist.

This bar is right down the road from Jodi, Deanna, and MaryJo's house. It is so packed, I can hardly walk.

After a few minutes, I spot Davey. He has followed us. Or I should say, followed me. He kept his eyes on me, smiling at me, walking towards me, ignoring the advances of other girls. He was sooo cute and his accent was almost as intoxicating as the Jack and Coke he bought me. He asked me to kiss him. I glanced around to see if MaryJo was nearby, but I didn't see her.

His face was inches from mine and we were leaning in slowly. I stopped. I kept thinking, MaryJo, MaryJo, MaryJo...

"Davey, I'd like to kiss you, but I don't want to upset MaryJo. She already seems pretty angry with you already."

He took a deep breath and shook his head, launching into some story about how his relationship with MaryJo was never a big deal.

Whatever. I excuse myself to go to the restroom, where I run into drunk 15-year-olds asking me if they look 18. Nope. This bar sucks.

Deanna and I leave and walk to her house about 10 minutes away. I fall into a restless sleep on the couch, woken up only by MaryJo and Jodi coming in and falling all over the kitchen floor, laughing.

Somehow, by the grace of God, I was able to get up and go to work in the morning. I have no idea how.

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