Here's the next installment.
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THE GREAT SHEEP MYSTERY
By now you've probably heard about Hullabaloo over here. It's caused quite a stir. According the newspapers, all of the sheep in Northern Ireland have gone missing! Farmers are mystified. Police on the case have been stymied. Overnight, every single sheep in Northern Ireland has disappeared! What nefarious villain could have done this?
In my own defense, it wasn't my idea. It was Lucky's.
It must be because we are getting so close to his favorite holiday, St. Patrick's day.
You see, he had been waiting for me in my hotel room when I arrived in Belfast. He wasted no time. He handed me a bucket of green paint and a paintbrush. With a twinkle in his eye he told me that we had a mission to accomplish: In the spirit of St. Paddy's day, we were going to paint the all the sheep in Northern Ireland Lucky's favorite color: green!
Now, I don't know about you, but I've never painted sheep before. Lucky looked at me and simply said, "There's nothing to it lad!" and he snapped is fingers. Instantly we were transported to a field on the outskirts of town. In the field were a herd of rather nervous looking sheep.
Apparently Lucky had given this all some thought, because he looked at me and said, "Here's the plan: you're a big strapping lad, so what you're going to do is catch the sheep, then I'm going to paint them." This of course gave me serious cause for concern. You see, despite all rumors to the contrary, I know absolutely nothing about catching sheep. I told lucky this, and he was undeterred. He assured me that this is just what I needed. He said that nothing cures jetlag like catching a few sheep. At the time, all I felt like doing was counting them.
But Lucky was having nothing of that. He pointed at a big fluffy white specimen across the field and commanded, "Get me that one!"
Before we go any further with this, I should mention that I was standing in this field wearing my new brown dress shoes, slacks and a white button down oxford shirt. I hope you can see where this is going. Please tell your mother that I didn't have a choice.
Now, a little advice for those of you who might want to catch your own sheep one day: The first thing you have to do is corner them. It's kind of like trying to catch cotton balls on a hardwood floor using a hair dryer. Very frustrating. It took me almost ten minutes of running about hither and thither before I was able to corner a few of the herd at the edge of the field. There they were, my fluffy white foes, tails twitching nervously and baaing left and right. Well, I'm not known for my subtlety (or sanity), so I put my head down and ran right at the biggest one.
Have you ever tried to tackle a sheep before? Well, apparently they don't like it very much. It's kind of like running into a 100 pound pillow. A very angry 100 pound pillow. Make that a very smelly, very angry, 100 pound pillow. You get the picture now. The key, apparently, is to knock them on their backs as quick as you can. I got that first one down, but he was having none of that. He squirmed and squalled and generally did his best to put up a good fight. Five minutes later I had him pinned. Lucky came over with his paint brush and gave our first sheep a new coat of green. Of course I got a liberal amount of green paint all over me to.
Girls, please tell your Mother that I love her - and that I promise to buy some new clothes - because mine were now completely ruined. It had taken us nearly 20 minutes to tackle one sheep and paint it and I was now covered head to toes in grass, mud, green paint, and some other things that really didn't smell very nice. The good news: my jetlag was gone. I felt great. In fact, I realized I kind of liked sheep tackling.
So with that, Lucky and I proceeded to paint the rest of the sheep in that field, and in fact we painted the sheep in ALL of the nearby fields. By the time it got dark that evening, Lucky and I had painted all of the sheep in Northern Ireland green. All of them. Every single one. No lie.
Now Lucky and I thought this was just a grand joke - you see, if you paint all of the sheep green, they actually blend into the Irish countryside remarkably well. You see everything in the country over here is green. The fields are green, the trees are green, the hedges are green... and now so are the sheep.
Which means that all of the sheep in Northern Ireland are now effectively invisible. That's right - it's true! Lucky and I hadn't really thought that part through. If you paint a sheep green and set him free around here, well, it's the perfect camouflage! That all sounds harmless enough right? I mean what harm could a few invisible sheep do? Apparently, quite a lot.
You see, scientists didn't know this, but sheep apparently have a sense of humor. It's true. Once they realized that they were invisible they started to run amok. They would sneak up behind innocent farmers, get really close, and then let out their loudest, "BAAAAA!!!!!" Of course the poor farmer would jump ride out of his overalls. Apparently the sheep thought this was absolutely hilarious. They'd laugh and laugh - have you ever heard a sheep laugh before? It's halfway between a hiccup and a sneeze. A silly noise really.
I went back to my hotel room, my jetlag cured. It took nearly three hours of scrubbing in the bathtub to get the green paint out of my hair. If you turn on the news, you'll see that the headlines are all about the great missing sheep mystery in Northern Ireland. Everyone is mystified - but that's how the sheep like it. Lucky and I won't tell anyone. This is our little joke - and now it's your's too.
Love and kisses from the green hills of Ireland,
Dad
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