I WAS DRIVING from White Sands Missile Range to the El Paso airport. I had just quit my job and I was headed home. Because I had quit, the project was to lose one car, due to the reduction in head count. Thus, the car to be lost was assigned to me. If I didn’t turn it in, at the car rental place at the airport, I’m in big trouble. If any company employee prevented me from turning in the car, the troublemaker would be instantly terminated, from employment and pay check.
I had been forced to travel to White Sands by Rodney, my Department Manager.
Rodney was what we call in the computer programming trade an ass hole. Inside the company, Rodney’s word was law. Refuse to obey Rodney’s slightest wish and a lot of bad things would happen to you.
I had been assigned to work on one of Rodney’s projects, out at White Sands. Aside from installing my software, there was no work that I do, out at White Sands. So, I told Rodney to take his job and shove it. I did agree to give two weeks’ notice and to travel to White Sands and install the software that I had developed. As a result, everyone on the project hated me and I had narrowly avoided physical confrontation with the other project guys, mainly because I’m Irish.
Why did I avoid trouble because I’m Irish? Well, I carry a whiskey stick with me, at all times. My whiskey stick may be better known to you as a shillelagh. I’m an expert practitioner of the rince an bhata uisce bheatha (‘dance of the whiskey stick’) style of Clan Doyle, although I’m not a member of Clan Doyle. (Back when, Irish lads were sometimes hired to protect a distillery. Thus, the shillelagh that they used was often referred to as a ‘whiskey stick.’ Don’t ever try to get between an Irishman and his whiskey.)