Expanding the Team

Tonight is bar trivia night, an opportunity to unplug from the news, which is terrible, get together with friends, and engage in friendly competition with other locals.  Last week, a young lady informed us that she and her friend would be joining our team, effective tonight.

Who were we to say no?  This woman is a force to be reckoned with- she's a motormouth (not in a pejorative sense), with a continual line of snappy patter.  She didn't just kiss the Blarney Stone, she slipped her tongue so far down its throat, she gave it a tonsilectomy.  She had us rolling with her anecdotes, perfectly delivered.

In particular, she told a story of her early days as an immigrant from Ireland's County Kerry.  She had been visiting Manhattan, and took the Metro North train back to Yonkers.  When she hopped in a taxi, the cab driver asked her about her accent, and she told him that she was from Ireland.  As luck would have it, he had just seen the film adaptation of Angela's Ashes, so he knew things.  He replied, "You're lucky to have gotten out alive!!!"

Given this cue to riff on, she spun a yarn about growing up in a shack with a leaky roof, raised by a consumptive mother along with nineteen siblings.  With her particular knack for banter, she kept regaling this credulous man with a tale of privation and misery.  Good thing she got out alive, indeed!

How could we say no to such a character when she informed us that she was henceforth on our team?