Friday Night at Irish Fest

Friday night at Irish Fest was providing rather complicated. On the one hand, I was expecting to spend most of the night hanging out with Eric, Katy, their young lad Colin and whatever other members of Eric’s family that were near us at the time. On the other hand, my parents, one of my aunts and a couple of her adult grandchildren were going to there as well. As a result, I was trying to meet up with both groups. For about an hour, I was failing at both.

You see, Eric’s group was down at the South gate, working the door, whereas my family was up at the Rock Stage on the North side of the grounds to see the band that my second cousin’s boyfriend plays in. It’s at least a fifteen minute walk to go from one to the other. After gaining entry at the South gate and getting a status from Eric on when he expected to arrive, I headed up to the Rock stage looking for my family. Not finding them, I returned to the South gate to check for Eric and then back to the Rock stage. During this process, I noted at least a few nice looking young ladies and one red-headed young lady that was very nice looking indeed. As Eric and I are both fond of fiery hair, I mentally marked her, hoping that we’d see her again so I could point her out to Eric.

The band that my cousin’s boyfriend is in started playing at 6pm. About 6:15 as I stood at the Rock Stage looking for my parents and enjoying the music, my phone buzzed with a text message. Eric had arrived. I scurried to the South Gate, there was much rejoicing, more beer was purchased, I spoke to him of the red-haired young lady and then we collected Katy and the boy before heading back towards the Rock Stage.

Not far before the Rock Stage is a Sprecher Beer booth and we needed to pause there to refill. As we completed this transaction, my mother called wondering where I was. As she was still at the Rock Stage and it was loud in general, neither of us heard the other very well. I tried to communicate our location and that it was nearby but held little hope of finding them quickly. Thirty seconds later, my parents had found us.

We exchanged greetings, the baby was cooed over and then it was noted that the band was nearly done. We wandered over to the Rock Stage for the last song and a half, trying to talk. I looked for my aunt, as I know what she looks like and I didn’t know what my second cousins looked like. I didn’t see her. I was informed that she wasn’t feeling well and hadn’t come. My cousins had and, as the music ceased, my mom started leading me to them to say hello. As we walked down the aisle, I scanned the crowd, not clear as to where we were going. To my delight, I saw the attractive young red-haired lady, pleased that I would be able to point her out to Eric afterall.

Math flashed through my head, proving that the beer had yet to addle it. I added our general course to our reason for walking this way with the young lady I saw. Moments later I was being introduced to the red-haired young lady who, as it turns out, is my second cousin.

After we chatted for a minute or two, my father expressed that he had a headache coming on from all the noise and a lack of food. As they had this as a quest, we separated and I quickly located my friends at the back of the stage, sitting on bleachers as they rocked Colin in his stroller. From this position, I pointed out the red-haired young lady, using her slightly larger sister as a reference point. Despite our distance from them, they were easy to make out. Once he had spotted her, I followed with “That’s my second cousin.”

Eric immediately started laughing. Katy did an excellent slow burn turn towards me, look of distain on her face, and noted “Ewwwww.” I protested my innocence. “I didn’t know at the time!” Eric, for his part, continued laughing and rightfully so.

This very quickly became the Best Joke Ever.

Eric would make a comment to the effect of ‘maybe if you dressed her like a second cousin she’d be okay’. My punchline was similar in construction, like my text message to Eric on Saturday: ‘The attractive young lady at the restaurant just complimented me on my sideburns. Hope I’m not related to her.’

To be fair, ‘Hope I’m not related to her’ has got to be one of the creepiest ways to call a young lady attractive. After this weekend, it seems like a reasonable check to make.