Ian O'Sullivan had a long history of horrible St. Patrick's Days. For as long as he could remember, the holiday had plagued him with its stifling emerald cheer, blaring jig music, and downright mortifying "Kiss me, I'm Irish" jokes (mostly at his expense).Â
 Not to mention the frothing mugs of green…whatever that stuff was. During his second semester of college, Ian had had the lovely experience of being attendant to friends who'd celebrated too much and wound up regurgitating "celebration" in an abundance of lime stomach content. Ian's car, Ian's shoes, Ian's carpet, Ian's couch, and Ian himself were just some of the many victims that were caught in the crossfire of the post-St. Patrick's Day purging. Nobody ever seemed to make it to the ivory throne.
 Needless to say, his hopes were not high when it came to March 17--and if it were up to him, the day of the Irish wouldn't exist on the calendar in the first place. After all, wasn't it just an excuse for March to be more than a stretch between Valentine's Day and Easter?
 Regardless, the seventeenth of March arrived just as it did every year, rays of sunshine peeking through the curtains of Ian's small studio apartment. He awoke slowly, running a freckled hand over his face before blinking up at the ceiling.
 That's when it hit him. Today. It was today.
 Just as quickly as they had opened, his eyes shut tightly, reddish eyelashes curling against his cheeks as he let out of groan of dread.
 He allowed himself a few moments of self-pity, even rolling slightly back into his pillows to bury his head in them. He knew that the annoying alarm he'd forgotten to chuck out the window again would go off in a moment, beginning his day in an oh-so-pleasant manner.Â
 But...it didn't. He peered suspiciously from under his lashes at the clock that sat on his bureau, but the cheerful green numbers simply shined back: 7:30 a.m.
 Huh. He sat up and rubbed his face again. Okay, he thought. Well, the universe is bound to change it up sometimes.
 He reached out for his phone on the beanbag chair that acted as his makeshift nightstand, barely managing to avoid knocking over a card his sister had sent him from back home. A bright pot of gold glittered atop it and when he’d received the thing from Molly just a few days before, he didn’t bother opening it for fear of green confetti (eighth grade), blasting reel music (his study abroad semester), or worst of all: glitter (pretty much every other year). Now he eyed it disagreeably, knowing that she would probably call asking how he had liked it sometime today.
 Pushing his legs over the side of the bed, he traded his phone for the card and braced himself for the worst. He peeled it open slowly, taking care to hold it away from his very beige sheets. When the inner crease became visible, he sucked in a sharp breath and found…nothing.
 TOP O’ THE MORNIN’ TO YA, IAN-O.
 Happy St. Patty’s Day! I hope this one’s not as rubbish as the last one…or the one before that…or the one the year before that. Eh, you get the idea (Hey, a girl can hope, can’t she?)
 YOU’D BETTER CALL ME WHEN YOU GET THIS.
 Leave it to Molly to sign off using her favorite Irish ballad. Still, Ian thought it odd that the card hadn’t come with any signature annoyances. He turned it over in his hands, as if waiting for a leprechaun to pop out and shout “Gotcha, lad!”
 Yet it remained silent. Ian threw the card back into the chair and headed toward the bathroom.
 After a quick shower and a breakfast to match, Ian snatched up his things and trekked down to the bus stop on the next street. As he boarded the old route 17, grabbing an overhead beam for support, an elderly lady with bright green eyes nudged him enthusiastically from her seat. Ian yanked the music buds from his ears.
 “Excuse me, young man. Does that belong to you?” The woman’s wizened fingers gestured to a crumpled green bill lying on the ground near Ian’s Chuck Taylors.
 “Oh,” he had started, squinting down at the money. “No, I don’t think—”
 “Nonsense!” she winked, clearly not letting it go. She rolled up the sleeves of her forest green cardigan and started to reach down for it, clearly struggling.
 “Oh, here. Let me help—” Before he knew what he was doing, Ian had stooped low and pulled the change off the floor. The bus took a sharp turn then, and though he’d closed his fingers around it, Ian was jostled alongside the crowd of others who were standing holding the handrails for support.
 When he finally turned to hand it back to the old woman at the next stop, he found her already disembarking and the bus doors shutting as his attempt to shout fell on deaf ears. He looked back down at the crumpled cash in his hands.
 His eyes popped. What was going on?
The rest of Ian’s day was similarly scary in its number of blessings. His architectural design professor—who had been particularly hard on Ian all semester—praised his latest work and passed back blueprints with an “A” at the top.
 His architectural history class got canceled for the week because his professor was having her baby early and the deadline for his project in modeling class got extended by two full weeks.
 Not to mention, he managed to book studio time during a daylight hour. He never managed to book studio time while the sun was still up.
 Needless to say, Ian was freaking out a bit. Or a lot.
 Where were the ridiculous people reaching out to pinch him because he wasn’t wearing green? Or the marching band kids out on the main lawn playing “Drunken Sailor” at every student who passed by?
 Where were the nutters roving the grounds for shamrocks that they swore were four-leaf clovers?
 He told himself they would pop up eventually. They always did.
 When he emerged from the library late that afternoon to spot a rainbow in the sky, the universe proved him wrong yet again. Though there was music playing in the courtyard, it wasn’t being produced by honking tubas or French horns. Rather, the tune was lilting—flute music, he thought. It sounded like…Ireland?
 Was that ridiculous? Probably. But based on his day, he wasn’t going to discount it.
 Taking it upon himself to investigate, he wandered toward the cluster of trees from which the music seemed to be floating and spied a group…dancing? A bunch of college students were twirling and jumping to the light music, and Ian? Ian thought it looked almost fun.
 “C’mon!” A curly-haired blonde girl in a light green sundress waved her arm at him as though she wanted him to join. He looked left and right to make sure that she was addressing him before staring at her strangely.
 “You heard me,” she laughed, a dimple catching in her right cheek. “It’s only fun if everyone joins in.” She reached out for his arm this time and Ian found himself awkwardly turning and hopping in a clumsy pattern that was somehow bizarre and amusing all at the same time.
 “St. Patrick’s Day tradition, don’tcha know?” said the girl. “I’m Jenny, by the way. Not like the Whiskey-in-the-Jar Jenny, but if you’re not nice to me I might deceive you.” She winked kindly.
 It had been forever since Ian had felt this free…this happy. Who knew that a St. Patrick’s jig in the middle of a stretch of grass could do so much for his mood?
 He had tried so hard to deny its workings all day long and now? Now he just felt like letting go. He twirled Jenny once and jumped into the air.
 One phone number and a few hours later, Ian returned to his apartment smiling and whistling the tune to “Black Velvet Band.” He set his bag and tools down on the breakfast bar, setting off to fix himself some dinner.
 He was kind of amazed at how—in the stretch of one day—he could see such a change in the course of St. Patrick’s Day. He’d always believed that it would be a forever-in-his-bad-graces sort of day. But just when he had fixed his mark on it, it had all gone and transformed on him—for the better.
 Yep, St. Patrick’s Day had made all the changes necessary to turn his mind around this year.
 A knock sounded at his front door and as he turned to open it, still whistling, his best friend Sean stumbled forward in a green tuxedo and a slurred manner. “Are you ready to part-y?” he asked excitedly before promptly throwing up all over Ian’s welcome mat.
 Well, maybe almost all the changes.
