Once on St. Patrick’s Day, when I was younger, I filled my refrigerator with 17 individual glasses of water. I had heard on the radio the day before, if you put exactly 17 cups of water on the night before, all the cups will all magically turn green when you see them the next day. I woke up the next morning and darted to my fridge hoping the Irish Leprechauns had dutifully kept their part of the bargain. But when I busted the fridge wide open I had discovered that the cups were all mysteriously gone. There was no trace of them whatsoever. Distressed, I trudged back to my room worried that I had not done something right, such as putting too many glasses (even though I triple checked the night before) and that I made the Leprechauns angry, thus giving me bad luck for the rest of the year. Later that day, during dinner my dad asked me why there were so many cups in the fridge that morning. After explaining why and being laughed at, I soon learned that my dad had poured them all out, and put them all in the dishwasher to dry. And so, despite my chagrin, my hope for good luck was restored and I was able to sleep that night, confident that no banshee would terrorize the 9-year-old me and take my soul.
-James Ramos