Mhairi Forrest

The kids and I had our annual leprechaun hunt this past Saturday. It’s become quite a tradition in our house, right up there with the biggies of Christmas and Easter, which is a little odd, considering we’re not Irish. We begin preparations right after Christmas (we take our hunting of the little fellas VERY seriously). The ornaments are still on the tree and the younger ones are already planning how they’re going to catch Liam, the family leprechaun, in March.

A variety of boxes, cardboard, toilet roll tubes, and various ephemera starts piling up, materials necessary for building the traps. No egg carton is ever thrown out, after all, the sections make great chairs and toilets for little bottoms. I become a scavenger in the stores for odd bits of packaging. You’d be amazed how helpful people become when you tell them you’re trying to catch a leprechaun; although, come to think of it, I’d be helpful, too, if some strange lady approached me and said she was looking for leprechauns. This year, a guy in the grocery store opened a whole stack of boxes, so I could have the dividers inside, after I told him they looked like little apartment buildings.

The bait for the finished traps is always the same – potatoes, raw, or as Liam likes to call them, praties, occasionally flowers (my youngest daughter’s idea) and whiskey. This year I decided to forgo the whiskey as I didn’t want to risk drunken leprechauns running around the garden, singing Irish drinking songs and scaring the children and their friends.

Once the traps are ready, off we go to find us some leprechauns. Binoculars are helpful, as are butterfly nets, bug boxes… well, think about it, where are we going to put him when we catch him? This year, one of the girls found a leprechaun hole and slide disguised as a hole in the ground with a palm frond sticking out of it. There’s nothing like seeing a whole group of kids and grownups, standing around a hole, next to a busy street, listening for little Irish voices (I’d have given anything to have been a ventriloquist at that moment).

Our special ops missions have yet to be successful. We’ve heard plenty of them rustling about in bushes, but we’ve never been able to catch one, not in the almost two decades I’ve been forcing, I mean, encouraging my children to capture one, find his pot of gold, and ensure my comfortable retirement. The consolation is, Liam the Leprechaun always visits the traps while we’re out hunting (none of my clever children has ever figured out they should wait with the traps) and leaves thank you letters (for the praties – he’s a very well-mannered leprechaun) with little green footprints all over them (but not very tidy) and fairy gold.

I’ve learned a lot from these excursions. You don’t need fairy dust, or even a lot of money, just a little imagination and time and you create magic they’ll never forget.

I’m a single woman and I don’t date. When I make this statement, I get reactions from, “Are you frigid?” to “Don’t you like men?” I find these responses ironic. There was a time in our culture when not dating was the norm. Now, I’m an oddball, or rather, as I call myself, an odd bird, somewhere out on the fringes among the sexually cryogenic and the misanthropic.

My response to the first challenge is laughter. How else do you answer such a stupid question? To the second, I reply that no, I like men very much. I like the men who come into my life so much, in fact, I choose to treat them and their hearts with the honour and respect they deserve. Unfortunately, our culture has so devalued human beings that we sample each other like chocolates. I don’t like nuts or maple creams, so there’s no chance they’ll make it into my mouth. Other flavours, I’ll take a bite of because they seem appealing and throw away when they’re not. Then, I’ll find something I like and eat the whole thing.

I believe dating, as it exists, fosters the same kind of mentality about people. We try them out, many times allowing them, or ourselves to become emotionally and physically connected, before we really know each other. And what happens when we discover we’re not compatible? We move on, either carrying, or leaving behind, at the very least, a bruised heart and ego.

Dating, where everybody’s minding his p’s and q’s is not the place to find out who someone is. It’s in cultivating friendships, free from the pressures of romantic and sexual expectations, that we can grow in appreciation and love for others. That’s where we discover what it is we want. And this point is crucial. Many people who are dating, have no idea what it is they actually want and have no goal in mind. I would argue, this is especially true of women (Maybe the guys will have a different viewpoint). Many times we date because we are afraid of loneliness; or, we like the attention and validation we get when someone asks us out (or will go out with us); or we want that person to provide something we think we’re lacking. This is a self-centered way of viewing other human beings and with this as the foundation, it’s no wonder our relationships are in such shambles.

I know I want to marry again, but I’m unwilling to diminish the value of any of the men I meet in order to find the right person. So, I’m very careful about the signals I send out, no matter how much I’m tempted to do otherwise. I get to know and enjoy them as friends and within the context of those relationships, I believe I will find the person I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. This has not been an easy choice to make, but I believe there’s no greater love than to lay down my life and desires for my friends. And I believe that’s the kind of powerful and radical foundation for a relationship that will outlast the better and the worst, the richer and the poorer, the sickness and the health.

A male friend and I were discussing toilet seat etiquette. He wanted to know why it is women make such an issue out of the position of the lid. Being a guy, he assumed the practical viewpoint – if you see it’s up, put it down. This simplistic solution betrayed his ignorance of the female mind (Rule of thumb – if a female mind is involved, the solution is NEVER simple!).

Of course we could put it down! Do you really believe we’re unaware of the mechanics? After all, we’re the ones who clean the darn thing, so we get how it works! You see, when you leave the seat up, you remind us you’re not thinking about us 24/7. Now, intellectually we’ll acknowledge it’s ridiculous to expect you to be anticipating our needs while you’re in the bathroom (and never mind if we were anticipating your needs, we’d put it up – this point’s completely off topic, so don’t even think about mentioning it!), so the first or second offense, we’ll excuse as an oversight. But when you keep leaving it up… Ooh! You’ve just dissed us!… and that reminds us of the time you ignored us at the party and talked to the girl in the red dress… which reminds us of the time you didn’t like the red pants we bought…

Now, we were going about our business, not even thinking about all this stuff, until you went and made it an issue by leaving the seat up… AGAIN. No woman worth her weight in toilet paper (single ply ’cause it’s thinner) is ever going refuse your porcelain invitation to discuss the relationship and, really, you must WANT to talk about it, or else you’d stop doing it. See! It’s all quite logical and even sort of noble that we bring it up and you ought to show your appreciation with flowers or something. Which reminds us of the time you forgot our anniversary…