Maura woke to find her bedroom bathed in green light. She sighed as she shoved her feet into slippers. Then a squeal escaped as paper crumpled under her toes.
“Mother,” she groaned as she bent over to snatch out the paper in the toe of her left slipper.
“Come and find me gold. If ye dare.” Dark green crayon scrawled on lime green paper.
“Not another scavenger hunt.” She grumbled as she she wiggled her toes in her now empty slipper.
She shuffled down the hallway, calling out for her mother. Not surprised to receive no response, she persisted in calling out as she stomped down the stairs.
“Come on, mom, I don’t want to play this game…” She meant to say more but the spectacle awaiting her in the kitchen stole her words away.
Boxes of cereal, with a leprechaun grinning from each one, lay upturned on the counter. Only cereal remained. Someone had eaten or otherwise disappeared every marshmallow. She stepped closer just to be sure. A splatter of green goo dripped from the ceiling above the blender. She shuddered as a large glob splashed against the counter.
Scrawled in green dry erase marker on the whiteboard, a message declared, “Clean my mess to find my rainbow.”
Maura rolled her eyes and began cleaning up the mess. Halfway through cleaning up the cereal, she found another message. A piece of tape held a slip of paper to the counter. It contained a single letter: “R”. She lifted it up and flipped it over.
“Find more color where dad loves to be.”
She pondered this for a moment before striding determinedly into the living room. The imaginary leprechaun hadn’t wreaked havoc in this room. She surveyed every inch then marched to her father’s recliner. After a minute of searching its crevices, she finds the next letter: “O”.
Its cryptic message: “Your mother tells me you’ll go crazy trying to figure out what is yellow.”
“Ha! Too easy, mom,” Maura called out on her way back to the kitchen.
She lifted the banana stand and found the “Y” taped to the bottom. “Your mother knows you will never get to the bottom of this green. You’ll freeze at the thought.”
She wrinkled up her nose and opened the freezer door. She riffled through the frozen vegetables, pulling out every one that was green. She surveyed the selection of the world’s least desirable foods. Finally, she picked up the box of frozen Brussel sprouts and turned it over in her hand, examining it closely. Unable to find a clue on the outside, she opened it and dumped the contents onto the counter. She eyed the plastic sleeve filled with little green balls with distaste before slowly lifting it up and shuffling them around. Frowning at the factory sealed bag, she picked the box up and peered inside. A carefully folded slip of paper has been wedged into the bottom of the box. Deft fingers revealed a “G” on one side and “Blue skies are shining on me” on the other.
“This leprechaun doesn’t want me to be at this too long,” she called out loudly as she headed toward the door.
She glanced around the back porch and into the backyard. Nothing caught her eye, so she paced the floor to the front door. A quick survey of the front porch didn’t yield a quick clue either. She closed her eyes and stepped further onto the porch, turning slowly to look again. Something niggled at her. Scanning her surroundings slowly, she noticed a ribbon dangling over the back of the wicker couch her mother loved so much.
She grabbed the ribbon and pulled on it. A light blue kite appeared with fluffy clouds carefully painted upon it. Attached to one of the wooden dowels giving it shape is the “B”.
“Indigo is almost blue. Where do we leave more blue for you?”
After pondering this, she returns to her bedroom. She knelt next to the bottom drawer and began pulling out blue jeans. She unfolded and shook each one. When that produced nothing, she began checking each pocket. She finally found a scrap of paper in the darkest blue pair.
“At last.” She exclaimed as she flipped from “I” to “Violet is a hard one to find, so find delicious purple again.”
“Delicious? The kitchen again?” Maura stomped back into the kitchen. “I’m not the one obsessed with getting steps, mother. That’s you.”
She threw open the door to the refrigerator and pulled out the fruit drawer. Nestled inside were some of the deepest purple grapes ever grown on the vine. She lifted them up, surprised to find nothing underneath. She grumbled and grabbed a bowl from the cabinet to slowly pour them into. Halfway through this task, the rolled up piece of paper slipped out. For this one, her mother selected such dark, royal purple paper that she struggled to read anything. Finally, she deciphered “V” and “Come wish me top of the morning in the biggest green item your mother owns.”
“She’s been hiding in the garage this whole time,” Maura declared in triumph.
True to her deduction, her mother waited inside their green SUV, watching a movie on the built in DVD player. As soon as Maura opened the door, triggering the lights, her mother stopped the movie and leaped from her vehicle.
“Me darlin’, ye’ve found me and me pot of gold,” She held out a plastic cauldron filled with chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil.
Maura didn’t take it, just stared in shock at her mother. She had piled her auburn hair under a jaunty green top hat. Her smile gleamed from amidst a bushy red mustache and beard. A carefully tailored green suit managed to somehow hide her curves. She even slumped over to make herself appear even shorter than her barely five foot height.
“This makes all that fuss worth it,” Maura recovered enough to pull out her phone and snap a few pictures.
“I want one with you,” her mother grabbed her and pulled her close for a selfie.
~Don’t let this story convince you that this needs to be your new Saint Patrick’s Day tradition. I am one of those “lazy” moms who isn’t going to make it look like a leprechaun peed in your toilet and I may have expressed my opinions on shelving an elf in my own odd way. That may have been my most beloved post of 2020, actually, but that is neither here nor there.~
