A bit of Awkwardness on St. Paddys Day!!

No doubt half the country is still recovering from that hectic weekend, no more so than myself, well have a read of this short story, I’m sure its happened to you all at some stage in one way or another.. AWKWARD!!

Last Monday, as you know was Paddy’s day, the greatest session known to man, well I went out Sunday night and did the dog on it, woke up hanging Monday morning and only had one thing ...on my mind ‘da cure’.

So I headed down to one of the pubs in Ashbourne, it was wedged after the local parade, I was sculling pints and singing songs ta beat the band, craic was mighty!!

Anyways, at one stage I went out to the smoking area with the lads to have a fag, now I’m not a smoker but I said I’d have one, I dunno about you, but when you don’t smoke regularly and chance one with a few pints on ya, it blows the absolute facking head off ya, especially when the cigarette you manage to bum, was none other than the dreaded ‘Major’, ya may as well be throwing your lips around the exhaust of a tractor as to smoke one of them yokes ,it’s like inhaling a bonfire with every drag!

After taking a few hefty pulls , I went straight back inside, goosed and extremely light-headed from the nicotine buzz. I spotted this woman at the bar who had her back to me, I was convinced it was my mother, as she was wearing the same top, So I waddled over, not thinking, big smiley stupid drunken head on me, mad for the craic and grabbed her arm “Mon ma, we have a dance, Yeoww ya boya”!!

She turned around, and made eye contact with me, sure jaysus it wasn’t my ma at all, I quickly released her arm, “God, I’m so sorry I thought you were my mother, I do apologise”, she wasn’t too quick to say “ahh its grand”.. as you do during an awkward moment like that! Well To make the situation 10 times worse, wasn’t she a foreign woman that, god love her, hadn’t a sniff of English, she just gave me a look of death. Stuck her nose up to the above ceiling, turned her back and continued to drink her black coffee.

I bowed the head in shame and quickly darted into the jax, looked straight ahead of me and began to call myself “an absolute fucking gobshite” into the mirror!!

I won’t be bumming another ‘green major’ cigarette anytime soon; ya may as well be smoking heroin!

I'll go handy on them "hash cookies" in future !!

The year I was travelling OZ we were told to make sure to go to this place called “nimbin” which is near Byron Bay, we said we’d go for the day to see what the craic was, the trip was $50.We were picked up from our hostel that morning, brought to this famous place, fed and home that eve – standard day trip!

Anyways before we headed off we did some research about this place, apparently it was a stoner’s paradise, no guards within 40 miles of the village and mad aul wans selling weed and “Hash biscuits” on the street. I wasn’t in the humour of smoking the weed, so I said I would go for a couple of the hash biscuits.

On the way down that morning the bus driver warned us only to take half of the cake that these women are selling because it’s very strong stuff!

I ran into one of these mad haters an hour or so before we were departing to head home,

“So how much for these cookies?”

“4 for $30”.. says she, wearing what only can be described as a very woolly curtain, which was wrapped around her whole body and a hat like a crow’s nest on top of her head - da cut of her!

“Grand job!” I says, with an eager and excited head on me!

 So I bought the 4 off her, straight away I horsed one into me, they were rotten, tasted like dry dirt. I waited about a half hour, absolutely no effects,

 “I’m after been codded by the aul biddy’s, these are a hape of shite”.

 So I decided to take another 2 of them, “ Ah I’m a big lad, I’ll be grand”

As we were on the bus home, there wasn’t a single word out of me and I suddenly began to gather this uncontrolled smile on my face, I just could not stop smiling, I’d say I had some mental head on me!

Then a few minutes later my toes and fingers went pure numb, I was in an isolation of utter relaxation,

  “Bejaysus this is mighty stuff” I says to the missus.

Then around 10 minutes later, I’m not sure how or why, but I started nodding away to myself telling the misuses,

“I love this song”

 “What song”.. says she

  “The tune that’s on the radio!!”

 “Rory there is no music on, you mad egg!!”

When she said that to me, I then got woefully paranoid and thought the whole bus was staring at me laughing, I was up the top of the bus and was too scared to turn around and make eye contact with anyone, I just sat there and gazed out the window in a state of total fear and was, to tell you the truth, absolutely fucking terrified of my own shadow, I couldn’t even close my eyes and try sleep cause I was getting a shocking bad dose of the ‘spinnies’ every time I tried that – nightmare!

This went on for the whole bus trip home, it felt like I was on the bus for 3 months and it was just a 45 minute drive! When we got to the hostel, I began to come back to normality and long and behold…. Wasn’t I was fucking starving!!

I got off the bus and headed straight into a chipper. While still smiling like a three quarter,

I ordered about a week’s wages worth of fast food, walked back into my hostel, sat down and ate for 52 minutes solid, didn’t say a word to anyone, just ate and ate and ate!! After my feast I then fell fast asleep for about 16 hours and woke up the next morning fresh as a daisy.

Be god there is a lot to be said about legalising Bob Marley’s favourite past time – Mighty stuff and no hangover !!