The Luck of the Irish

Saint Patrick’s Day. One of the few days of the year when public and belligerent drunkenness is both accepted and embraced. Having moved to Boston only recently, I was overjoyed to be spending the holiday in the most Irish city in these United States. Despite the sunny day, it somehow slipped my mind that a city full of drunken fools might not be the warmest environment. Moreover, I should have realized that packing 75 of these collegiate dipsomaniacs into one room of Bean Town’s notoriously undersized apartments and including my not so inebriated self into the mix, couldn’t end so well for me…or for my shoes.

As I like to do on all holidays – excluding Martin Luther King Day and usually Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day – I made it a point of dressing up. Realizing that my wardrobe wasn’t adorned in green garments, I was forced to improvise. I made due all right, but sought to dress the outfit up a little more to add an oomph of party pizzazz. In order to accomplish such a task, I put on some stockings and my favorite heels (in which I had accepted my high school diploma). They always are a showstopper and were the perfect addition to my St. Patties party suit.

As the party progressed, the room filled up. Soon enough, there wasn’t anywhere to move and a fairly sober me was squished in between sweaty, sleazy, and plastered 18 to 20 somethings in a way that was far from desirable. Escaping the masses, I found a railing and a friend. I had reached the safety zone of the apparent laser tag maze…or so I thought. A high pitched crash brought reality to its clearest point though. Someone had dropped a beer mug on the floor, causing the unconsumed alcohol to splash all over my stockings and my patent leather shoes. I was trapped between greasy sardines and a puddle of broken glass and wasted beer. For the first time in my life, I wished I was Moses, able to use my iPhone to the part the waters and cross to the other side. Maybe my aspirations would have been granted had I had enough liquor in me to believe that I had assumed such biblical powers. Instead, I checked to make sure my feet weren’t bleeding and careful tiptoed as if playing a very meticulous game of hopscotch in between the shards of glass and eventually made it to the other side. Safety!

The door to the outside was visible. I had almost reached the land of milk and honey, where I assumed the air would be sweet – not sweaty. As I reached for the door – SPLASH! A hazy-eyed man with a cigarette behind each ear, wearing a beanie and glasses looked up from the floor at me with terror in his eyes. Expecting me to sympathize with his self-inflicted loss of beverage, he let out a grunt of disappointment. Looking down to see what the fuss was about, I felt his same feelings of woe, only mine were filled with anger. He had spilled his sticky brew all over my new stockings and graduation shoes.  Had I not endured a similar incident moments ago, and had I not been trying to escape that very environment, and had my feet not immediately become freezing and sticky, I might have let it go. But since all of those experiences were a reality, I was furious. Not only that, but I recognized him as the kid from one of my classes that always showed up late and hung over, but managed to be the teachers favorite student. “You just dropped that on my feet,” I said with more frustration than I actually felt. After a slurred apology on his part, I continued to hassle him until his nervousness might have resulted in the regurgitation of his dining hall supper. Assuring him that it was fine (I didn’t want to ruin his night too) I let him go and refused his obligatory “I’m sorry” cigarettes. Proud of myself for the "beeronade" I had just made, I escaped the party feeling revitalized.

Finally arriving at the Promised Land, there was a deficit of dairy products and bee pollen, so the Moses in me was a little let down. But at least I had an acceptable amount of personal space and could actually see the people I conversed with. Making eye contact with an old friend, I walked over and introduced myself to his intoxicated buddies. Catching up with him, I was once again enjoying myself. But before I knew it, déjà vu hit me with all its might. A mixture of pressure and noise exploded beneath me, as one of my new acquaintances dropped his alcoholic disguise – a Nantucket Nectar bottle – on my feet. It shattered upon impact, this time, actually discoloring my beige shoes and scratching their patent leather surface with its glassy splinters. “Really?!” My burst of disbelief was, of course, misunderstood by the surrounding audience, as they had no knowledge of the previous torture I had endured. After flicking the glass off of my shoes and wiping the liquid off my legs, I gathered my bag and coat and, fed up with the Groundhog Day-esque evening. I trudged back to my building, wondering if I had gotten the holidays mixed up. Could it have actually been April Fools Day?

Bob Hopeless

I arrived at Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport disappointed to be leaving the sunny weather, adorable labradoodle, good food, and better company behind. After a forlorn and objectionable goodbye with my Father, I walked into the airport with a fresh breath of air. My grief toward my imminent departure was mended by the knowledge that I’d get to use my brand new iPhone 4 to board the airplane.

Finally, I had achieved my dream: landing a spot in the elite and overwhelmingly present “cool club” – for Smartphone users only. For years, I trekked back and forth to the printer from the computer, attempting desperately and repetitively to print my boarding passes. Printer jams, lack of ink, and the crushing guilt of slaying entire colonies of trees over the years were all concerns that I could now put to rest, with the simple click of a button.

Walking up to the security checkpoint, the officer cheerfully guesses my name. “Good afternoon Miss…..Tiffany?” “Tiffany! Like Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” I think, reminding me that I had forgotten the four California post cards I had just purchased in the car. Frustrated, but still polite, I say “Close! But it’s Sienna.” He chuckles. With immense pride in my eyes and satisfaction in my hand gesture, I give him my phone. “Oh, actually, we are told not to accept electronic tickets.” My heart drops. I am speechless. “Wait…really?” “Yeah, sorry ma’am,” he said with a chuckle, sensing my disappointment, “but if you go print it right over there, I’ll let you cut the line when you come back.” I could have cried. But instead, I smiled and walked away, making sure to take my apparently useless phone with me.

I get in line to have my ticket printed. Finally reaching the front, the happy go lucky and unfortunately unpleasant looking attendant asks if I am a first class member. “No.” “Oh, okay, well then you can go wait in that line and use the computer to print your ticket.” “Go stuff your face in a birthday cake,” I wanted to tell her. So I waited in line yet again and eventually came to terms with the fact that my tree murdering days would not yet, in fact, retire.

Ready to skip the line and get through security, I realize that the charming young man who laughed at my misery but also gave me his word, was nowhere to be found. Instead, a homely, pimply woman sat at the desk. So again, I waited, almost expecting her to say, “Oh, we don’t take paper tickets anymore, just solid gold ones.” She did not. So I strolled past her and onto the security line.

Per the rules, I proceeded to remove my trusty boots that had walked me all over Boston, New York, and Los Angeles for a good six months. My grandmother had been pestering me to buy new ones for a while, as she decided I looked trashy and she couldn’t stand to see me in such wretched things. But I declined her offer on the principle boot season is almost over and it would be foolish to waste money on something I’d wear for only a month. New styles would be in fashion next fall, and I’d just want another pair then. So I decided that my loyal shoes could last until I needed them no longer. Well, I unzipped the left one, careful of the area where the seam had come loose, only to break the zipper, incapacitating it for all of eternity. Walking through the metal detector, I expected to find the airport official rifling through my bags in search of some illegal object that a terrorist had slipped into my bag unbeknownst to me. Instead, the conveyer belt just spit out my broken boot and unwieldy bags. Tying the lace around the top of the zipper, I momentarily mended the dilemma, while simultaneously redefining the term “shabby chic.”

So I sit down at my terminal 20 minutes before boarding time, severely flustered and disappointed. Looking around, my only neighbor is a senile woman carrying a paisley briefcase and a plastic bag with cat food inside of it. Clearly, something was askew. So I ask the flight attendant, who tells me that the terminal has been changed. Up I get, dragging my lame shoe’d foot along behind me to the other terminal. Finally, a place to rest. Now is the time when I would have written the postcards, but clearly that was no longer an option. So for twenty minutes, I texted on my iPhone – a capability that my plain old 2008 cell phone successfully fulfilled. When they called Boarding Group 4, I morosely put my iPhone away, withdrew my paper ticket, and handed it to the real Tiff’nay, who directed me onto the aircraft. Dallas, here I come!