Here’s the truth: Another pub has come to Upnorth Lake.
Halloooooooo! Mulligan “Mugs” O’Brew here. Some of the critters that populate the north woods are familiar to most of you, my three readers. There are bear (one of which is a regular at The Pub), deer, squirrels, moose (again, one of which is a regular), and assorted other wildlife. Without question, my favorite bird is the loon. Its call just says north woods. In the lakes, we have fish of course, but never enough, nor large enough, I’m told. There is one creature, however, that until recently, I never knew existed in the north woods. Actually, it didn’t until just a short while ago. Let me explain.
The Pub reopened one week ago tomorrow. In this first week small amounts of several different things have gone missing. I was, at first, assuming my memory was giving me trouble, what with all the stress of reopening. But, I was beginning to get suspicious when a whole bottle of Irish whiskey went missing. Several different beers were short a few bottles which I could chalk up to forgetfulness, but a whole bottle of whiskey? This was very odd. You see, this is the Northwoods Irish Pub, but the truth is, not too many of the patrons drink Irish whiskey. We serve more Scotch and Canadian whiskeys. Then we were missing some uncooked food, hamburger, bar nuts, veggies, and such. Leftovers have always had a way of disappearing, but not the fixin’s. We had a thief!
As I often do in the morning, I went for a walk today along the lakeshore. There was almost no wind and thus virtually no sound. Except for the lilt of an old Irish jig, I was in perfect silence…an Irish jig?!!? Coming from deeper in the woods was the unmistakable sound of an Irish fiddle and guitar. This was not normal for the north woods. I went to investigate.
Walking as quietly as I could, I slowly went deeper into the woods away from the lake. Deeper into the woods I walked, the music getting louder and louder. A little farther, a little farther, and I looked around. I could hear the music right there, no there, but nothing, I could see nothing.
“Oy. Mugs.” I jumped at least three feet! Turning around…nothing…then I looked down. There he was. Green three piece suit, with knickers, of course, green top hat, in one hand a tiny mug of beer and in the other a beautiful bent brier pipe (I thought I smelled pipe tobacco!), an elf-like creature about three feet tall. Yes, I was face-to-face…er…looking right at, a real leprechaun looking up at me. I did a second double take; he looked just like me! Goatee, glasses, everything, only he was less than half my height.
“Take it easy man, you’ll have a coronary. Let me welcome you to ‘Leprechaun’s Lair Pub and Eatery.’” He pointed to a sign carved into a small log that was hanging over a narrow hole at the base of a tree.
“Can I getya brew?” he asked and blew four perfect smoke rings. All I could do was nod.
He popped into the tree and back out faster than I could blink, and handed me a bottle of one of my favorite beers…okay the shock was wearing off just a bit, it was one of MY beers! The truth was dawning on me.
“You…you’re the one…you’re stealing my stuff, my supplies!”
“Stealing is sooch a harsh word. I merely appropriated a few necessaries for me new pub. Look, let me explain.” I took a swallow from the bottle. “First my name is Murphy Wee’Malley. That name may not mean anything to ya, but over a hundred years ago my daddy helped the O’Brews out with a little gold that they…uh…appropriated from him. So I figure you owe me .” Another several smoke rings came from his mouth.
“You mean that old story is true?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said taking a swallow from his small mug.
Having recovered my wits by now, I replied “But that gold was the O’Brew’s gold and it had gone missing!”
“Now let’s not get hung up on details. Relax, have a drink of your beer.”
“I will,” I said with a very tense tone in my voice, “since it’s MY beer.”
“Look,” Murphy said again, “let me explain. The economy sucks, no jobs as you know. Well, it’s worse in Ireland, much worse. I was looking for work, maybe in a pub, so I googled ‘Irish pub’ and what do I find but your blog. I read all about you rebuildin’ your place and got an idea, a small idea. There may not be any leprechauns, besides me, in the north woods, but the only animals you seem to have coming to your place regularly are bigger animals. They tend to intimidate the smaller crowd, ya know, like squirrels and ferrets and gophers and sooch. So I thought, well, they’re more my size. What if I built a pub that catered to them? Besides, you look like me; I thought it must be a wee bit o’ luck, a sign. So I hopped on the first plane over the pond (pretended I was a souvenir) and here I am. It took a while to find ya, ya know. But, I got here in time to get started in the woods this past winter (man is it cold here!) by nicking a few scraps, now and again, from your materials. You never noticed because they were just scraps. I guess you noticed when I started, er, using a few of the consumables though, ay?”
” Yeh, well…uh…couldn’t really tell what was happening. I mean not much was taken at a time, but the Irish whiskey! Couldn’t not notice that, could I?” I answered, trying to collect my thoughts.
“Ya, am sorry ’bout that, but I couldn’t figure out how to take only part of the bottle. It wasn’t open yet” he said.
“Look, I can’t have you stealin’ my supplies though!” I said.
“Have another beer, let’s discuss,” he replied. “Do you know of a good acorn supplier?”
So, we talked and I have a competitor, sort of. All right, not really a competitor at all. But I know from my background, you can’t trust a leprechaun half the time and you never know which half that is.
Keep on Peddlin’,
Mugs
