We figured it would be best if I came out the 16th and spent the night so we could get a good night's sleep and be in line at the... Waffle House... nice and early to assure our free t-shirt. The plan was to be out there by 9, in Bed by 10, 6 hours of sleep and in Line no later than 5 AM. (Uhhh... Waffle houses are the place to be... in Kent... on St. Patrick's Day... for root beer... at 6AM... yeah.)
So anyway things went as planned and I got to Kent and Padraic and I decided we should go out to Taco Bell for a bite to eat before we turned in for the evening. I ordered 2 chili cheese burritos, which will come back to haunt me later in the story. (FYI Taco Bell is the preffered dining/ hang out place for all my old Hiram buddies.) I forget whether it was him or me who said it, but one of us challenged the other one, "Your not tired are you?" Who said it is not all that clear or important but after the words were spoken I realized that neither of us was going to get any sleep. Not that we wouldn't welcome a nap, but just that both of us were too stubborn to be the first to admit it.
So we now had about 6 hours to kill before we had to get Padraic's other friends and were not sure how we were going to do it. Then she walked in. I never found out her name, or even if she was real. It was almost like a dream. Into that Taco Bell that particular evening walked our St. Patrick's Day angel. She had beautiful eyes, silky smooth skin and long flowing green hair. Padriac and I looked at her, then looked at each other, and we had our quest.
So the next couple hours were spend driving all over north east Ohio looking for green hair dye. We checked out several stores in Kent, then tried Ravenna, and eventually found some at a Wall-Greens somewhere in Akron. We also made it a priority to pick up a six pack of Irish... ummm... root beer... while we were out to have once we made it back to the room, which we did around 2 or so. Padraic also had some Jameson Irish... uhhh... cola... which he offered. And since he was offering I felt... ummm... obligated... to have a drink of the... cola. We also started in on the... root beer. Now let me tell you, cola, root beer and chili cheese burrito's do not mix. I started feeling rather ill, but of course I couldn't let on. Padraic then had the brain-storm that I should cut his hair and got out his clippers. Now I have never cut hair before, and the... uhhh... caffeine... was staring to take effect. But Padriac had the utmost confidence in my abilities most likely because the... caffeine... was effecting him as well. So I did, and well you see the picture, you can be the judge.
We then died our hair, had another... root beer, picked up Padriac's friends (or rather they picked us up) and went to the... Waffle house. We got our free t-shirt, had a great time, sampled some green... root beer... and eggs (which to my amazement went extremely well together) and were in bed by 7AM. But not before we called some of our closest friends who did not make the adventure to wish them a Happy St. Patrick's Day. And to our surprise they are still talking to us.
So kids, if you take anything from this story, I want you to remember this... mixing Jameson Irish Cola and Chile cheese burritos is kind of like underage drinking. It's a bad idea.
