Darby Cave and the Fanny Slappers

I realize I'm supposed to be on vacation right now and having a blast and soaking up Irish culture, but I have a story that I just can't let pass me by. Since I packed almost nothing, a pen and paper are not at hand and I have to blog this. It could rival my "luggage store" story, but since this is a first draft, it may be a bit weak. With time, I may embellish it enough to send to my girl Tina Fey.

I arrived at Brown's Hostel this afternoon around 3:15, Ireland time, an hour earlier than in Spain. I found it fairly easily and pushed the creaky glass paned door open to have a putrid smell fill my sensitive nose. I figured that might just be the smell of most hostels, as this is my first one. A group of Spanish tourists, 5 of them, were ahead of me to check in. They spoke broken english with the clerk, and I thought about translating, but lacked the courage.

A girl named Maria kept saying, "we paid two, 9 for 1 18 for 2..." The clerk kept saying, "oh I know you're fucking me over so bad right now..." in his lovely Irish accent. As I stood in line behind the group, two girls walk in from inside the hostel. One was shorter, with a ponytail and a smile, the second was tall with a trucker's hat and a spike sticking out of the left side of her lower lip. Both held mugs filled with wine and had purple teeth.

The tall one says, "hey Angus, how's it going up here?" The clerk looks up and tells her to, "shut the fuck up." This sends both girls into hysterics and they settle in on the table with all the maps in the corner to further comment on the clerk's situation. Angus asks, "so, did you find out what that smell is?" (Ah, so it doesn't usually smell like this...). The short one answered, "yes, it's the roof." "What?" says Angus. "Yes, the roof," says the tall one, "I was sure you'd have seen us, I positioned my ass just so in fromt of the camera for you," as she bends over and shows him. Both the girls giggled, and Angus frantically tries to get the Spanish tourists checked in, rolling his eyes at the girls.

It takes another 10 minutes or so to get everything figured out and Angus gets up to show the group to their room. The girls say, "Angus, you have customers waiting," referring to me. Angus walks up to me and grabs my shoulders, squeezes them, and strokes my face twice with his right hand, sayimg, "thank you for waiting loyal customer," then turns and walks away. I laughed nervously and started talking to the girls, as they laughed at Angus' gesture. "So, how long have you two been here?" The short one says 3 weeks and the tall one 5 months. They both work in Dublin and live at the hostel because it's so cheap.

Angus returns... "Ok, who's next?" He says, though I'm the only person at the desk. He takes my info and starts searching for my name. "Darby," he says, "Darby Cave? Wow, you're parents sure didn't like you." I said, "What, I like my name." Of course, he busts out, "Darby O'Gill and the Little People, I love that movie, toy tah tah toy." The girls say, "what? That's a movie?" And Angus explains it. "What's your last name Angus?" the tall one asks. "O'Donnel" he answers. Angus decides to use my full name at all times at this point and tries to say it a lot, "Darby Cave, here's your room number, Darby Cave, and breakfast, Darby Cave, is served at 8 until 10, Darby Cave, accept on Sundays, Darby Cave, it's 9-11, Darby Cave, because God was a lazy bastard..." and on and on.

"Darby Cave huh?" The tall one chimes, "That sounds like a singer's name." A new customer walks in and she turns to him and says, "Hi, this is Darby Cave, she's debuting tonight and will be here all week." Angus starts describing to me that I'm in the Carrick dorm and the girls squeel, "oh that's where we are, it's a good one!" Angus cuts in, "watch out though, these two are fanny slappers." We all laugh. Another customer walks in and Angus says, "Hello, I'm Angus O'Donnel and this is Darby Cave and the Fanny Slappers, they'll be here all week."

That's all I can remember of the dialogue now... hopefully more hilarity will come to me as I sleep in my top bunk in the back of the Carrick dorm at Brown's Hostel tonight. I left there at about 5 tonight and walked around downtown and got a toursits map. I also got to see an english movie, yay! There aint no dubbin' in Dublin. Stranger than Fiction. I really liked it. I'll probably go see another tomorrow night. Thanks to my GFU student ID with no date on it, I can get in for 6 Euros, yesssssss! I've got to get them in when I can, I sure do miss going to movies. Spanish ones are good too, but I usually get sleepy trying so hard to understand.

I'm not sure what's on tap for tomorrow, but I want to see the book of Kells and go to the Guiness Brewery at some point. I'll blog more when I get home, or maybe tomorrow, who knows. Kiss me, I'm Irish!