Day Eighty: The Day of the Leprechaun

Saturday, August 18, 2007 It would have been a normal morning with a quiet breakfast but something happened that proved to be an omen for the rest of the day’s events. As I sat down to begin my breakfast with a bowl of cereal and a banana, I reached for the small silver pitcher of milk and before pouring its contents onto my healthy concoction, something caught my eye.

Looking closer into the container I noticed what seemed to be tiny specs and small bubbles which looked like small droplets of oil, floating on the top. A strange feeling came over me liken to someone who had recent trauma and their senses were alarmed. There was something different about the milk, but I was not sure what it was. When one of the serving ladies came into the dining room, I called her over and said that I thought the milk looked odd. She took the pitcher of milk and disappeared into the kitchen.

After a couple of minutes, another woman came out of the kitchen carrying a silver pitcher and put it on my table. She said that the milk which the young server brought back into the kitchen was……freshly made dairy milk!!!

Hah!! It seemed those shamrock-toting, pot-of-gold hoarding devious little Leprechauns had tried to slip me another gut bomb! But it seemed I foiled their devious scheme to bring me to my knees this time. As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you – fool me twice, shame on me. Will the little bastards stop at nothing to keep me from their pot of gold? All I can say is that you should never underestimate the power of a redhead!

Adding to recent events, I thought that my nemesis may have had a hand in something that happened last night. When checking my email at Sammy’s pub and getting my dinner, I saw a message from Aer Lingus, which was my airline transportation to and from Ireland.

The email said that due to “industrial action” my flight heading to JFK on Wednesday was canceled and that I should go to their web site and make a new booking. They were kind enough to say that they would not charge me for changing my travel dates to an earlier time, and MAY not charge me to extend my travel to arrange a later date. Gee, wasn’t that generous of them.

It made me wonder what they meant by “industrial action”, as I had never heard that term used in business school. Being a recent graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in business, and having been a customer all my life, it seemed that what they meant to say was that it was crisis management due to mismanagement. What ever the reason, it had the potential of making things very inconvenient for me.

After a victorious breakfast, I finished proofing my entry and packed up for another try at the Skellig Michael trip. This time I called the Skellig Experience visitor center to put my name on the boat list and give them my mobile phone number, asking the curator to give me a ring when they received the report on sea conditions. Since they would know around the noon hour as to whether or not the trip was a go and the trip departed at 2:30pm, I figured that placing myself in Killarney would put me in range with time to spare.

After getting into Killarney around half-ten, it gave me plenty of time to upload my data and check my email. It also gave me time to see about changing my flight plans with Aer Lingus. It was one thing to leave my luggage in New York on the trip over, but now they wanted to leave me in Ireland to fend for myself. I envisioned the Leprechauns reeling with laughter, as they reflected on my misfortune.

Getting my data uploaded and having checked my email, I tried to go to the web site for Aer Lingus to see what I could do to remedy my dilemma. When I tried to log in, it did not like my information and denied access. Perhaps the little green bastards found a way to hack into the Aer Lingus web site as well. It seemed I was getting no where with regard to resolving this crisis.

About that time, my mobile rang and it was the curator at the Skellig Experience. It seemed that the stormy weather that had enveloped my neck of the woods, had also made its way to the Skelligs, and there was to be no trip to Skellig Michael today. It made me wonder if the person he had talked to on the radio was really the boat captain, and not a Leprechaun splashing in a bath tub.

He asked if I was going to be around next week, as he heard the weather was forecasted to improve. Telling him I was not sure of my plans yet, it seemed that it would depend on how things went for the week.

With that, I decided that a trip to Shannon Airport and the Aer Lingus desk was in order. With the trouble I was having with their web site, and not being comfortable with trying to iron out this problem on the phone, it was my thinking that a face-to-face meeting was vital to the success of getting suitable arrangements.

With my flight out of Baltimore departing on the 27^th for Seattle, a flight getting me back to JFK before then would prevent me from having to adjust my plans with US Airways. Let us not forget rescheduling my rental car out of JFK and the shuttle van from Seattle to my home in Olympia Washington. Oh wait! I almost forgot about where I was going to live while waiting for my delayed flight out of Ireland. It seemed that the little men had gone through great lengths to create such a mess.

However, if arrangements could be made to leave earlier than the 22^nd, you would think that there would be no problem, right? Well, I had booked two castle stays, one on Sunday and the other on Monday in celebration of my birthday. I also reserved a seat for Irish Nights at the Bunratty Folk Park, which was a dinner show with Irish dancing, music and storytelling. These arrangements were to be the pinnacle events for my vacation in Ireland, bringing it to a glorious and colorful close. Having said that, what do you think was the probability of me wanting to leave before my planned departure date?

High tailing it to Shannon by way of the N22 to Castleisland, thence the N21 to Limerick to meet the N18 to Shannon, I found the route to be very grueling with the N21 coming to a crawl in Castleisland, Abbeyfeale, Newcastle West and Adare. The only saving grace was a bypass to the west of Limerick. This would make only four cities I have found in the Republic that had bypasses. Hopefully in a few years that would change before the congestion in the small towns due to the increased traffic got to a paralyzing level.

Once at the airport, I was able to find the Aer Lingus counter and noticed some customers ahead of me with the same dilemma. Throwing myself on the mercy of the employees at the ticket desk, I hoped there would be a proper solution.

It was learned that the so called industrial action was in fact a strike by the airlines’ pilots, because they objected to the way the company was operated and had problems with management. With Aer Lingus planning to discontinue a major connection from Shannon to Heathrow airport in England, which was a major hub in Europe, it seemed that this may be part of the reason. At any rate, the pilot’s decision to strike would affect many passengers, of which I was one.

What was interesting was that the pilots’ union chose the day of my planned travel to strike. It made me think that perhaps the Leprechauns had an inside man assigned to the union committee for Aer Lingus pilots. Was there no end to this madness?

After informing me that many folks had already responded to the message to amend their travel plans, the woman at the ticket counter said that unless I took a seat on a plane departing tomorrow the 19^th at 2pm, the earliest flight I could arrange would not be until the 27^th of August. The Aer Lingus flight on the 27^th would mean I’d miss my connection from Baltimore to Seattle, as that was the day it was planned for departure. Leaving tomorrow at 2pm was not looking good either.

She said I could talk to a reservation specialist, who had been on the phone with the other customers at the counter trying to help them out, but that I had to wait until they were done. Thinking I had nothing better to do, it did not seem a problem to wait.

During idle conversation, it slipped that I was a business-class passenger, and the world seemed to morph into a parallel universe, as she began to madly type on her computer keyboard. When the customer before me was finished with the Aer Lingus representative on the phone, she grabbed the phone from him and handed it to me. She directed me to tell the reservation specialist that I was a premier customer, and perhaps she could make something happen.

As I mulled over the possibilities with a reservation specialist on the phone, the lady at the counter tried to go into the system to see what she could find as an alternative. Trying to determine if the pain of rescheduling my domestic travel was more than the disappointment of canceling my carefully designed exit plan for Ireland, I decided to fly on the 27^th and would work things out with my US travel. I figured that once in back in the states, my options for travel were more plentiful.

When I hung up the phone, Geraldine informed me that it may be possible for me to get a flight on the 23^rd but that there was no guarantee it would fly, as they had not found a crew to fly it. Having confirmed my booking for the 27^th, she went ahead and put me on the wait list for the flight on the 23^rd of August. Taking my contact information, she said that she would let me know the status of the flight as soon as possible.

With my two bookings in hand, I felt somewhat relieved and begun to make some tentative plans in my head as I walked out to the car. With a light rain spraying me in the face, I wondered if the Leprechauns had orchestrated this whole mess, trying to make one last effort to bring me to my demise. Perhaps not, but it felt like it was indeed the day of the Leprechaun.