The Unlucky Irish

You know the story of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day…. well that title unfortunately describes my week perfectly.

I had a mile long to-do list coming back from 10-Day Break: write my theology research paper, type two observational reflection papers, create a project on the history of Irish knitting, finish an honor society application, apply for summer internships, read a whole book for literature, write a term paper for literature, write a term paper for archaeology, figure out spring semester classes… need I go on? 

I situated myself a makeshift desk in front of the fireplace every morning and sat their until dark. The living room of our cottage looked like a three-year-old threw a mean temper tantrum – I had paper handouts, notebooks, textbooks, and my laptop strewn across the floor. 

But after five days of early mornings and late nights, I was sleep deprived and my brain was fried. I will embarrassingly admit that I became so fed up with research and writing that when I finished my theology draft, my concluding sentence was “Ireland is tiny, but mighty.” I clicked saved, swiftly shut my laptop case, and told myself I would fix it another day. 

And though I did nothing but work from sun-up to sun-down this week, I only managed to chew off a tiny portion of my to-do list. It’s not so much the length of the to-do list that is stressing me out, it’s the fact that my to-do list went from nothing to everything in a matter of one day. 

But my to-do list is only the beginning of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. Saturday evening was spent chasing a shrew (a mouse-like rodent) around our cottage. He looked like a black cotton ball with a tail and long nose. 

I left piles of shredded cheese in the middle of the kitchen floor to lure him out and I set up barriers to block off his hiding spots. Our cottage looked like a giant maze with cheese sprinkled everywhere. 

The shrew scampered back and forth between the kitchen and bathroom all evening, grabbing some cheese to-go and narrowly missing our attempts of capturing him under a plastic container. 

We finally had him corner in the bathroom but lost him to a tiny hole in the wall where he stayed for hours. 

We had no choice but to admit defeat and wait for the metal clamp mouse traps to be brought to our cottage the following morning. We barricaded up the bathroom and called it a night. 

Or so we thought. 

I went to bed early in preparation for our early morning departure to Northern Ireland, but I had a hard time falling and staying asleep because I decided to watch Insidious: Chapter 2. I don’t even like horror movies so I’m not sure what prompted this decision. 

At 3:15 a.m., in a hazy state between sleep and being awake, I heard it. There was a soft on-and-off rhythmic pitter-patter. 

Could it be the shrew? 

No, absolutely no way. 

I thought I must be imagining things – I was paranoid. The noise was probably just rain beating against the window, so I tried to fall back asleep. 

Then there was a rustling on the empty bed next to me followed by a pitter-patter up and down the side of the wall behind my headboard. 

Again, I thought I was hearing things. There couldn’t possibly be a shrew in my room. The bathroom was tightly barricaded, and my bedroom door was closed with a towel lining the bottom. 

So, I closed my eyes once again. 

Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter. 

This time the noise was distinctly loud, and it came from right under my bed. I flipped on the light switch and there was the shrew at the foot of my bed. 

I’m surprised all of Spiddal couldn’t hear me because I screamed bloody murder. The shrew tried to squeeze back out through a tiny crack in my door, but he must have been bloated from all the cheese I left out because he couldn’t escape. He scampered back underneath my bed. 

At the sound of my screams, my roommates came to my rescue. Margeaux and I, high on adrenaline, became obsessed with catching the little guy. 

After a few attempts at capture filled with more screaming, the shrew was finally caught in a cup at 4:02 a.m. We literally sprinted out of our cottage like robbers running away from a successful bank heist. We had finally caught the shrew and we needed to get him as far away from our cottage as possible. 

We let the shrew go free, but just because he was gone did not mean that we slept easy. I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning because I was worried that there might be more than one shrew in the cottage. 

So when my alarm went off in the morning, I was not feeling like little miss sunshine. Our bus for Northern Ireland picked us up outside of the cottage and I instantly fell into a light sleep in my seat. 

But that’s not the end of my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. I’m only just getting to the good part. 

I like to think that I am a very responsible, orderly person. But after overcoming a stressful week and not getting much sleep, I was a little (maybe a lot) off my game. 

I’ll just get right to the point: I permanently lost my phone in Drogheda, Ireland. Gone. Zip. Nowhere to be found. Never getting it back. Nine hundred dollars worth of technology (that I just bought 4 months ago) lost in a matter of ten minutes.

I retraced my steps over and over again… I had my phone on the bus. The bus dropped us off in front of a church. I sat on the steps of the church. I walked across the street to shop in a store called the Flying Tiger. I walked out of the store and realized my phone was missing. 

In a normal situation, I would have used Find My iPhone or Find My Friends to easily locate my lost phone. However, my cellular data is turned off while abroad and my location services only work when my phone is connected to WiFi. 

I tore apart the bus, I had people digging through bins in the Flying Tiger, and I re-checked the steps of the church, but no luck. We had to get back on the bus and keep moving toward our final destination in Belfast.

My only explanation for the vanishing phone is that it was stolen. 

The phone call to my mom on a friend’s borrowed phone was not fun to say the least. I learned my lesson the hard way. I will be almost three weeks without a phone and will have to pay for a new iPhone that my dad will bring to me in Dublin on his visit. 

Though my wallet isn’t too happy with me, being without a phone might help me stay more focused on my to-do list. My friends and I joked that it will be like “living in the olden days.” 

I thought the Irish were supposed to be lucky, but that has obviously proved to be nothing more than a cheesy cliché. The good news is that it can only get better from here – I’ve hit rock bottom and I’m ready to start climbing the ladder again. 

This week we are in Northern Ireland for a tour of Belfast and Derry, and we are topping off the week by participating in the Derry Halloween Parade. The plans sound promising, so I’m ready to turn this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week around.