a st. patrick's day story

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

Since this is the first time in three years that I'm not in Ireland for St. Patrick's, I thought I'd do a little blog-remembrance while having a Guinness.

While in Dublin it is common to come across groups of drunk people late at night in the weekends (and sometimes during the day!) it becomes even more common during this holiday. Many of those are not necessarily Irish, mind you, since there's a huge influx of tourists during this week every year (between half a million and one million if I remember correctly).

Now, in St. Patrick's day, 2003, I was heads-down working on what would shortly become clevercactus pro. It was a night of deep fog, and I was working quite late (as usual). Around 3 am, I hear sounds coming from the door. Sounds that indicated that someone was trying to open the lock. Coming out of flow state, slightly confused, I walk to the door and look through the peephole. A man is standing there, looking with confusion at a set of keys in his hand, with which he had evidently tried to open my door.

"Hello?" I venture, non-committal.
The man's head jerks up. Now I can see his eyes, glazed.
"Open the door" he says, in what semantically registers as an order but with a tone that makes it sound more like a plea.
"What?" I say.
"Come on, let me in." Definitely pleading now.
I chuckle under my breath. "I'm sorry, but you don't live here."
"Come on, let me in," he repeats, this time less sure of his request.
"Go away," I say, then laugh. I can't believe this guy.
He stands there for quite a while, undecisive, until he suddenly turns away and I see him go to the door of the apartment in front of mine. Problem is, he doesn't live there. I observe him. Again he tries to open the door with his keys, and I go back to work. I hear him make more noise further away, presumably trying to open the final door in the group, again with no luck.

Now, all the doors in the complex look alike, so I understand some level of confusion. But you really have to be wasted to not remember what apartment number you live in.

I assume he eventually went through all the apartments and found his, after all, there was only one more floor to go.

Unless he was in the wrong building of course. :)