Ah Ha!

Have you ever snored so loud that you wake yourself up? I just did. It is a possible side effect of whiskey drinking. I have gotten used to it.

Upon gaining control over the sounds of my sinuses, I listened. Silence. I turned over, started to relax again. That's when I heard the bottles clank.

My attention was grabbed. A charge ran through me. Adrenaline? All I know is that I suddenly felt alert and sober. Slowly, I peeked up over the boxes between me and the whiskey chest.

The lid to the chest was ajar. It was certainly more open that I recalled leaving it. I didn't see anyone in front of it or near it. Perhaps the bottles were just settling. While a logical conclusion, I still rose slowly, careful to be as quiet as I could manage as I approached the chest. At least I could prove to myself the status of the whiskey before I relaxed again.

The lid lifted with the slightest of squeaks. As it opened, a glow began to pour from the interior of the chest. Not the brightness of a light bulb but still the glow of illumination.

This glow emanated from a fungus, a mushroom tucked in the corner of the chest. I'd seen the type of thing before, from deep underground. They give off almost a blueish light.

Inside the chest was a small chap, about three times the height of the whiskey bottle from which he was slugging drinks down. He was dressed entirely in red: suit, shirt, jacket. Even his broad hat with the tall peak was red. He looked up at me and grinned. “Ah. Is this your drink then? Might I compliment you on your choice of beverages?”

A leprechaun has been drinking my whiskey! How about that?

Gotta Try Something

I have come to a conclusion regarding the matter of my whiskey. It is there when I check on it just before bed. It is gone when I check on it first thing in the morning. It seems a simple enough conclusion to reach; the whiskey disappears while I'm asleep, under cover of darkness, at night. The question that comes with that conclusion, to my mind at least, revolves around why. Why then? Is it the cover of darkness? Is it my lack of presence? Is it the night?

While I cannot remove the night, I can change my presence from 'not there' to 'there'. That may also remove the cover of darkness if I'm not careful. When troubleshooting a problem, its best to change as few of the elements as possible before retrying. That way you can be more confident about which change resolved the problem. While it may seem more logical to have the lights on in the shed overnight, I think my presence will be a bigger change. It eliminates more possibilities than just leaving the lights on all night.

I cleared a little space near the chest where I've been storing the whiskey. Not directly in front of it or on top of it or anything like that. Just nearby. Hopefully close enough where I'll be able to keep an eye on what goes on without being too obvious. Its been warm out so it should be a comfortable enough night. I've got a pillow. I've got a few blankets. I've got a book. I've got a reading light. Most importantly, I've got whiskey.

One way or another, this should be a fun night.

I Suppose That's Something

The whiskey supply has been restored. I set a different 'trap' for myself involving string around the bottles and multiple pieces of wood set up to form the letter 'X' across the tops of the bottles. It's still not terribly complicated but it should be enough to reflect more information about the information pinching my booze. That is why I have hurried to the shed this morning. I'm so curious.

I'm almost happy to see the whiskey is gone. Clearly this is a sign I've gone completely mad. That should not be a good thing. The string sits in the bottom of the wooden box, placed dead in the center and tried very delicately into a rose. At least something that looks enough like a rose for me to think that it looks like a rose. That is not a skill I'm aware that I have which would seem to mean that this skill is locked away in my brain and emerges only when my conscious mind leaves me. Or I'm being possessed. Or I didn't do it.

The wood has been carefully rearranged so that it spells out 'HI TY'. As my name is not 'TY' I'm guessing this is short for 'thank you'.

Well, at least whomever it is taking my whiskey is trying to be polite.

But Not Often

One of the main problems of the missing whiskey, despite the simple fact that its missing, is that it is distracting me from my larger goal of locating one of the little people. Of the two goals, clearly that one is more important to my overall well being and would likely reduce my concerns over the whiskey should it prove successful.

However, there is a weird trigger in my brain that does not allow me to focus my priorities properly. Certainly there can be some level of laziness or procrastination involved but sometimes it's a simple matter of giving myself too much to do. I can write out a 'to do' list, rank the items by priority or when they are due, and my brain will find a way to get me enthused about completing something that's not necessary at the moment. I'm still being productive, but not in the most efficient manner possible. Occasionally I get smart and can trick this part of my brain into doing what is critical, but its not easy.

The whiskey disappearing is a simple thing really, something I should be able to resolve reasonably quickly. That I haven't already done so is frustrating. That frustration may be the primary reason this task has become my focus. Or perhaps I know the capture of a wee folk is going to be complicated so I'm trying to work out how to accomplish that in my subconscious while I primarily think through this problem.

Occasionally I am smarter than I think.

Marks the What?

It doesn't look like anything else is missing, not that it's easy to tell. It looks like the only thing missing from the shed is my whiskey. Good choice but why just that?

I am not the Great Detective. Nor am I a good detective if you really want to be picky about it. Cigar ash and tracks in mud and broken twigs are all beyond me. If I'm good at anything it's remembering things that are generally considered trivial in nature and I can guess motivations reasonably well, at least until I'm personally involved in a situation and then I'm lost. Anyway, I'm not clever enough to see if any dust is overturned because a box was moved as part of a search or anything like that. From what my eyes tell me, the shed has not been dug through as part of an intruder's search.

It almost implies that someone walked in, collected my whiskey, and made off with it. I'm starting to worry that I did this and just don't remember doing it. That would be bad.

Had I consumed all this whiskey myself in the last couple days, I would be dead, at the very least in the hospital so that wouldn't seem to be what happened.

Had I smashed them in some sort of drunken fit of emotion, I doubt I would have cleaned up the mess this well, or at all quite probably. So at least that seems unlikely.

Had I hidden them on myself... Hmm. Not sure how to disprove that to myself. Assuming again that I would have done so in some emotional or drunken state, the only reasons I can see that would prevent me from recalling this activity, where would I moved them to? Would I have done so with enough care to leave no trace?

It's not the cost of the whiskey, although that is on my mind. It's not that its gone, as I can always get more. It's the principle of the thing. Where did it go?

Yesterday I decided that, while my search continued, it was logical to restore my missing supply. While I did not purchase enough to replace every bottle that was missing, I should have been set for a few days, long enough to uncover the disposition of the earlier wave,

You may have noticed my use of the word 'should' in the paragraph previous. There is a reason behind that word choice. This morning it's all gone again. What. The. Deuce.

I left myself a 'trap'. Nothing fancy; just a couple small pieces of wood atop the bottles. My thought was that, if I was moving these in some emotional state, the status of these pieces of wood would provide me some hint as to what was going on with me when I did it. If they were gone, I was coherent enough to think the wood belonged with the bottles and I'd take them. Or they'd just be sprawled on the bottom of the wooden chest I'm using as a hideyhole.

I didn't expect them to be crossed like an 'X'. What does that mean?

But...

“So, where is it?”

My aunt stared at me blankly. “I think you'll need to be a bit more specific than that Patrick.”

“My whiskey.”

“Wherever you left it last I imagine. I'm sorry but I haven't been keeping track of that for you as well. I'm finding its better if I don't.”

“I had a supply and it's missing. There isn't a lot of math to do here.”

“So you think I took it.”

“Unfortunately I can't think of an alternative and I'm usually very good at that game.”

She set down the pot plant she'd been moving in order to turn her attention to me. This does not bode well. “Patrick I didn't take it.”

“Then where did you hide it?”

“I didn't. I don't know where you had it.”

I didn't want to believe her. Logically this makes sense. There are two of us here, I didn't move it, so it must have been her. “Patrick, I know you've been through some... things recently and talking about those things is not part of your plan. Am I concerned with how you have been drinking? Yes. Do I think it was to a point where I needed to do something? No. Honestly.”

I wanted to be mad, at least upset. I know my aunt well enough to feel that she wasn't lying to me now.

But then what?

What is this now?

The reading was good, the reading was helpful, but the reading didn't tell me how to catch one of the little people. Might have to go talk to the neighbors again and see if there's anything in their stories that tell you how to catch one of these fellas. I don't believe that the neighbor girl would actually have caught one but, if she did, I wonder if she'd take pity on a sad old Patrick and lend him a wish. You don't know until you ask.

I pondered all these things as I wandered out to the shed. My aunt calls it a shed. I wouldn't. To me, a shed is a small structure that you can fit a lawnmower and maybe some lawn games, but not much else. My aunt's idea of a shed is something I'd call a garage; it's a larger structure used for storage. You could fit a car or two in it but she doesn't keep a car in it and that's likely the difference in terminology. I don't think she has a car in there anyway. There's a lot of stuff in the shed so perhaps there's a car amongst it all. It's not where she keeps the car she drives, if that helps. In amongst all this non-sorted stored materials is my stash of whiskey.

It's not that I've hidden this whiskey in the shed. That would be weird, possibly awkward, certainly the sign of some sort of problem. At the very least it would show I expected to have my whiskey confiscated and was planning ahead to have that not happen. If I did do that, I'm not quite sure what that would say about me. Either I'm one step ahead or very protective of my whiskey. Consciously my decision to place the bulk of my stash here was because it looked like too much to store in the house all at once. Also, getting more would involve a hint of exercise as I'd have to walk all the way over here to restock. It's not far but it does involve leaving the house and crossing the yard. Every little bit helps. Subconsciously was I hiding it? It's hard to say. My subconscious hasn't been speaking with me much of late so who knows what it's up to now.

Reasons aside, the bulk of my whiskey store is in the shed. At least that was my belief until I looked in the case. I am sure, no, I know there were loads more bottles of whiskey left in there. Now the case is empty. I may have been on a bit of a bender recently but I didn't, I couldn't, have drunk all that already. I didn't, did I? No, impossible, that's at least a dozen bottles missing. Without help, an extra liver at least, I'd be dead, genetics or not. So someone pinched my whiskey.

Really? I don't need this now. I mean, I never need this sort of thing but especially now. Who would do digging around in here and grab all this? We're out of town. It takes five minutes to walk to the neighbors, longer to stagger, and I know that for a fact. It's not likely we'd have a visitor or a prowler. Which must mean my aunt found my whiskey and hid it on me. Which is bull.