Up Your Irish

During my junior year of college, I had an internship with a Boston-based publishing company. Not the most exciting of gigs, but one of the magazines I worked on was for nurses. So I got to enjoy brief moments of exhilaration when we'd visit local nursing colleges to hold little "informational sessions" with the students -- a chance for us to chat them up while not-so-stealthily promoting our publication.

During one such visit, my boss, a pretty friggin' hot 47 year old if I may add, gave her introductory spiel to the crowd, then turned it over to me. As a witty aside, and knowing the room was packed with 18 year old goodness, she added, "And Ken blushes so easily. It's awfully cute."

Caught off guard, and my head already spinning from watching the blonde in the front row working over a lollipop, I stepped up to address the crowd with a hearty, "Yes, that blushing is a curse of the Irish."

Then, thinking an alcoholic reference might be just what this situation calls for, I added: "There's another Irish curse. But I won't get into that right now."

A few titters from the crowd. Chicks eyeballing each other and giggling. A few glances down past my belt. It was then I remembered that other other Irish curse. And I could almost hear the sound of my pride crashing down around my ankles.

Too late to reel it back in, I forged ahead, realizing any dreams I harbored of seven nursing students asking me to join them for a post-meeting fuck-a-thon would likely have to be shelved.

But, lesson learnt. Clearly, the wrong way to win over a crowd of hot nursing students is, "Hi, I've got a small pecker. And now, let's talk about our editorial submission policy."