On Wednesday morning I woke up and ran 5 miles.
I was feeling pretty stinking good about myself until I opened up social media. See… it turns out that while I was setting my standards for the day unreasonably low, the rest of the moms of the world were busy setting of their children’s leprechaun traps, painting tiny green footprints on the concrete outside and dying every imaginable food item green.
Woops.
I had no amazing St. Patrick’s day plans for my kids. I didn’t even have dedicated clothing items for them!
We had no green milk. No colorful cereal I could pick the green bits out of (we ate oatmeal and protein pancakes, thank you very much), and NO signs of a leprechaun haunting our home.
In short, I failed mom-ing this week.
I’m pretty sure Charlie has no idea that we had a holiday earlier this week.
To absolve myself of my utter lack of preparation, I wrote a flash piece that at the very least acknowledges the passing of March 17th.
And thus was born:
Good Luck
Jill N Davies
“Wake up!”
Norm groaned, turning in his bed so that his arm flopped over the side, reaching for an alarm that didn’t exist. His head swam with the motion. In his half-asleep daze, he imagined his eyeballs bobbing in a sea of the amber colored liquid that saturated his brain. Whisky…
Was it the kind with the y or the ey? Whichever one the Irish made, that was the kind he’d been drinking last night, and that was the kind making everything swim and churn now.
“Norm! It’s time to get up!”
This time the prompt was accompanied by a sound pop on the top of Norm’s head.
“Ow!” he groaned.
Begrudgingly, Norm sat up, scrunching his eyes and trying to make sense of his surroundings.
Norm turned his head to the nightstand to find a squat little fellow with a bushy grey beard and a bowler hat. He was about 10 inches tall and almost as round, with pointy ears, ruddy cheeks and a bulbous nose. Aside from the absence of a green suit and a pot-o-gold, he was the spitting image of a leprechaun.
“Am I still drunk?” Norm asked.
“No, just hung over,” The leprechaun said.
Norm blinked. “You’re not real,” he said.
“Don’t tell me what I am or am not! I’m here aren’t I?” the leprechaun scolded.
Norm considered this argument, his thoughts drowning under the constant murmur that blanketed his brain. What the hell did I do last night?
“What are you?” he asked.
“My name is Lucky. I’m a Leprechaun,” the little fellow squeaked.
Norm considered this. “You don’t have an Irish accent. You aren’t wearing green,” he pointed out.
“Tired, outdated stereotypes,” Lucky scoffed.
“What are you doing here?” Norm asked.
Lucky laughed. “I take it you don’t remember stumbling out of the pub last night to search the field for four-leaf clovers?”
Norm had a vague memory of a blurry green field—of stumbling over uneven ground and the smell of sweet grass. The image brought forth another memory. He looked down at his hands to see the bright red indents.
“You bit me!” Norm yelled.
“Yeah, but you won in the end, so I’m here to grant your wish,” Lucky said.
“My wish?” Norm asked, trying hard to remember.
“You’re stalling now!” Lucky said, getting to his feet and waiving his hands. “Get out of bed and get ready for work!”
At the prompting of the curmudgeonly leprechaun, he stood up and made his way into the bathroom to get ready for work. To his surprise, Lucky followed him. Under his guidance, Norm drank 16 ounces of water and took two Tylenol. Though he wasn’t in the mood, he shaved. Instead of yesterday’s wrinkled clothes, he put on a pair of slacks and a clean shirt. Before he knew it, Norm was feeling slightly less hung-over than he actually was.
“Do you have to grant my wish if I don’t remember it?” Norm asked as he drove down the road toward the coffee shop.
“I do,” Lucky harumphed.
“Was it for money? Success? Love?” Norm rattled off all the wishes he could imagine.
“You wished for luck!” Lucky snapped, shutting Norm up. “Good luck.”
“And you’re going to give it to me?” Norm asked in amazement.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Lucky asked.
Norm found a parking spot right in front of the coffee shop. As he parked, he wondered if the spot had been Lucky’s doing, but before he could ask him, Lucky hopped into his briefcase so he could accompany him into the shop without being noticed.
Feeling luckier already, Norm grabbed the briefcase and sauntered confidently into the shop. The smell of freshly ground coffee greeted him like a warm, caffeinated hug. Norm waited in line, bypassing the menu to stare longingly at the barista with the chocolate brown hair and inviting smile.
When it was Norm’s turn to order the barista turned her smile toward him.
“Hi again! What can I get you?” she asked.
Lucky reached out and poked Norm in the thigh.
“Ow! Uh-Hi. Can I have an americano please? Extra shot with room for cream?” he asked, rubbing his smarting leg.
“SMILEI” Lucky hissed.
Norm did.
“You look nice,” she said. “So many folks have come in here looking like hell. Day after St. Patrick’s, you know.”
Norm did know. His eyes followed her as she left to make his coffee.
“Ask her for her number,” Lucky whispered.
“I can’t do that,” Norm protested.
“Yes, you can!” Lucky argued, “All you have to do is open your mouth and let the words come out.”
There was no time to argue. The barista was on her way back with a steaming cup.
“Here you go,” she said, still smiling.
Norm took the cup, noting that she’d written his name on it in bubbly handwriting. Instinctively he moved his leg away from the briefcase so Lucky couldn’t jab him again.
“Can I get your number?” He blurted.
“My number?” the barista asked.
“Yeah, so I can ask you out on a date,” Norm explained, wondering why he was following the instructions of a tiny man hidden in his briefcase.
“You don’t even know my name,” she said, frowning at the pens next to the register.
“I’m going to need that too.” Norm said. “The rest we can work out over dinner.”
The smile returned. She grabbed Norm’s receipt and scrawled her number on the back of it. Under the number she wrote Trish with a heart over the i.
“I don’t give my number to just anyone,” Trish said, handing him the receipt. “Must be your lucky day.”
“Yeah, must be,” Norm said, folding the paper into his wallet.
By the time he’d made his way out of the coffee shop and back into his car he’d remembered the leprechaun hiding in his briefcase. But when he opened it up there was no sign of Lucky.
The End
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