How NOT to pick up a Redhead!

Yesterday was St Patrick's Day here in Kangaroo Land.  

Saint Patrick's Day is huge here.

As a young Red Haired Amazona every year on St Patrick's Day my BFFs and I would rise bright and early.  We'd don our best and sexiest and make our way to the Canberra Irish Club to celebrate everything Irish.

We'd arrive with the Canberra masses and start with a hearty breakfast of Green eggs and bacon, washed down with a glass of Kilkenny!

My misty eyed reminiscences also include a gentle not- so happy reminder from my stomach. Stomach did not really love having Kilkenny for breakfast.

Neither did taste buds.  In fact stomach and taste buds didn't really love Kilkenny or Guinness at any time of the day!

But it was St Pat's Day and if you were a redhead in the Canberra Irish Club on St Patrick's Day, it was considered a Class A sin to drink anything else.

The festivities would already be in full swing by 10am.  The majority of participants were Australian with Irish descent making atrocious attempts at Irish accents whilst wearing green hats, Australians who had no Irish in them at all making atrocious attempts at Irish accents whilst wearing green hats, and the heroes of the day: the Irish ex-pats who would be holding court over the festivities like merry lords and ladies not needing to make any attempts at the Irish accent and not needing to make much attempt at all to be Irish as they were as Irish as Sean Shamrock sitting on the Blarney Stone singing Begorah.

I love the Irish.  Some of the best one liners ever at flung at me were from sweet Irish boys!

In that lovely lilting brogue:

"You're so sweet. You're like a lovely Irish lassie with sunkissed hair, ready to be kissed by a sturdy Irish lad like me!"

That one worked.

"You look like you've got a bit of Irish in you. Do you want some more?"

I've said it before. I do love a bit of saucy humour.  This one made me roar with laughter.  But that's as far as he got.

It wasn't as funny when I heard him try it on a brunette later that day!

Some Aussies tend to be a bit more gross and a lot less original.  If I had a dollar for every time one of them asked about the soft furnishings of my house, I'd be the leprecaun with the pot of gold:

"Does the carpet match the curtains?"

"Um, well I've got vertical blinds, and an Ikea spotty rug on floorboards..."

I've got a tip for you boys.  If you ask the question, you'll never find out.

Apparently I should be thanking a certain convict called Mary Mullins from Limerick who found herself shipped off to the colonies courtesy of His/ Her Majesty about a hundred or so years ago for my luscious auburn locks.

Thanks Mary!

I've heard in some countries, redheads cop a bit of a bashing. Verbally and sometimes physically!
Apparently some rapscallions tried to start 'Kick a Ginger Day' a few years ago. Scoundrels!  Let's turn the tables on them and celebrate 'Kick a dickhead Day'. Has more of a ring to it, don't you think?

Thank goodness I've never really encountered this kind of nasty business.

The interwebs (which is ALWAYS factual) has some interesting redhead facts:

1.  You can always be found in a crowd.  The amount of times friends & family have said' "Oh yeah, you were easy to see, your red hair stood out like a bloody beacon."

2. We do not have a fiery temper.  This is a myth created by men to throw it back on us when we get angry at their stupidity which they would also cop if they were equally stupid at a blonde or brunette.
"Gee honey, sorry I spent all my weeks salary on the Pokies. What you're angry? Gee you redheads are SOOO hot tempered!"

3.  Red headed men are hotties. 



I rest my case.


4.  Redheads rarely date each other because people think they are siblings. Which is a turn off.  

This happened to me.  I went out one night to meet up with friends at a local pub in Canberra.  As I walked in, I spied this extremely handsome Prince Harry lookalike (but as he looks now. If he looked like Prince Harry back then, he would have been a toddler and therefore not allowed in the pub).  
We had instant chemistry.  He walked up and said, "I want to take you out to dinner.  Now."  And off we went. We held hands, chatted, laughed, kissed, and the night was looking magical. 
We decided to go back the pub for another drink before, well, who knows?

When we returned, his workmates were there and greeted him, then one of them said, "Oh wow! Is this your sister?"
We looked at each other and all attraction died like a balloon with the air let out. 
In fact I looked at him and felt mildly repulsed as if I almost went home with my sibling. There may have been a little bit of vomit in the back of my throat.  I could see from the look on his face he felt exactly the same. 

5. We are happily mutants.  The gene that causes red hair, MC1R is a mutated recessive gene.  I am an X-Men.

6.  Red hair and blues eyes is the rarest combination in the world. We are human unicorns!


Over the years the pick up lines are fewer as I'm not out there in Pick Up Booty land anymore and that's totes fine by me.
But sometimes I'm taken by surprise.

One sunny morning, I was waiting for my morning cup of Wake Me Up Scotty! from the local barista near the train station on my way to work.

A gentleman walked in.

What I actually mean by gentleman is a man.  Possibly gentle. Most likely not.  He looked as if he had fallen on hard times.  Actually I think he was homeless.  And hadn't washed in a while. And had substituted food for liquor. And used it as aftershave.  He instantly reminded me of Lee Marvin from Paint Your Wagon.

"I was born under a wanderin' star."

When I say walked in, maybe I mean stumbled in?  Anyway,  I kind of felt sorry for him and was wondering if I should offer to buy him a coffee.

So he stumbled in, sees me and snaps back in shock. Or awe. I'm not kidding when I tell you it was like he was transfigured by me.  I started to feel a tad nervous when he says in a Lee Marvin Paint Your Wagon voice, "You're a redhead!"

"Um, yes?" I replied.

He exclaims loudly, leaning over to me, "I used to have a Red Headed girlfriend called Margaret!  And she was WILD!"

Then he leaned back and stared at me expectedly as if I was now going to also do something WILD!

It was as if he thought I'd drop down onto the floor spreadeagled and say, "Well come on down Sailor and gimme 50 of your best!"

Instead I looked at the barista like this:

Or it might have looked like this:

But most likely looked like this:

 And said, "Oh really?  I used to know a girl called Margaret and she was pretty wild too."

He looked confused.

And I grabbed my coffee and left.

It was quite satisfying to hear the barista and the 2 other customers quietly snort with laughter.

For those of you in time zones still celebrating over a pint of Kilkenny, 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

xox

Louise

The Red Haired Amazona