Those Prepositions Are Pesky, No?

Here’s another one from my Rando Archives:

The scene: A mostly deserted street in Cork, at approximately one a.m. on St. Patrick’s Day (or rather, St. Patrick’s Night)

The players: Myself, Brie (who you already know) and our new friend, Catherine, who we met the night before at our hostel

After a fun-filled day that had passed in a haze of parades, Guinness and green, Brie, Cat and I spent the night crawling from pub to pub, playing King’s Cup with the handy pack of cards that Cat happened to be carrying and hunting for cute Irishmen (we didn’t find any that trip, though we did find some cute Aussies in Galway).

Just before last call, I got a hankering (as I usually do at about this time of night when the alcohol has been flowing freely) for pizza. We managed to find a hole-in-the-wall pizzeria that was still open and serving, so I forked over about 12 euro for a small pie, which seemed a slightly ridiculous sum in the sober light of morning, but at the time appeared to be quite a reasonable price to pay to soak up all of the stout ale sloshing around my stomach.

As we were waiting outside for our order, a slight man of average height ambled over to us, his uneven gait aided by one of those crutches that attach to the forearm.

“I,” he announced by way of introduction, “will do anything to you, if you let me have a slice of your pizza.”

Uncertain if he simply mixed up his prepositions and a bit perplexed by his sudden presence, we assured him that if he waited, we would give him a slice of pizza. We were feeling magnanimous, after all, and it seemed in the spirit of St. Patrick to give back to the Emerald Isle.

Rando McSeamus proceeded to engage us in a drunken and slurred and mostly one-sided conversation about how he didn’t actually need his crutch, but that it could be quite useful as a weapon. It was at this point that I went inside to check on our food, and Rando McSeamus presented Brie with a “diamond” ring, which she forgot about until she found it lodged in her pocket the next morning.

I returned with our mediocre Irish-style pizza (though it was pepperoni, and did not in fact have any potatoes on it), and presented Rando McSeamus with a slice, which he accepted gratefully and ate with much glee. Then, he made this pronouncement:

“But really, I will do anything to you…anything at all in your dirtiest imagination.”

We exchanged glances. Oh, so he really did mean “to you” and not “for you.” Well. That’s a bit awkward now, isn’t it?

Us: No, really, we must be going now.

Him: But what about the oral sex?

Us: We’re good actually. But…thanks…for the offer. We guess.

Him: I could come back with you to your room?

Sidebar: Thank God we had sense enough to lie about which hostel we were staying at for the night.

Us: Oh. Um, well you see, there are rules…about that. Yeah, they kind of...frown…on guests and…fraternization.

Sidebar: Yes, there were that many ellipses in our responses.

Him (looking genuinely confused): But I’ve done plenty of foreign ladies at Sheila’s!

Us: Yeah, well, I guess they must have changed the rules. Sorry!

And then we scampered back to our hostel (not Shelia’s obviously—who knows what kind of establishment she was running), laughing so hard we almost lost our snack. We devoured the pizza in a matter of minutes (as girls are known to do when there are no gentlemen around to witness it. Otherwise, we only eat one slice and daintily pronounce ourselves to be “simply too full to take another bite!”). There was some dancing, some more drinking, and then we snuck out to another bar called Sin E where I belted out “The Rare Ould Times” with another drunk Irish person, and later scampered back home with much merriment.

Luckily, we never saw Rando McSeamus again.

However, Brie still has the ring that he gave her…one day, B…one day.