OKAY

So, I feel like I owe it to myself, and for whoever else could possibly be wondering (hoping its more than my aunt), to explain what happened after I lost my wallet on that just as fortunate second time running the naked mile whilst I was abroad. And yes, this was a month and a half after my foot injury, and immediately following my jump into poisonous shrubbery and naked run in with the assistant dean of students....it gets better.

So immediately after I had found out I lost my wallet, my first initial (drunken) response was to put on clothes, first and foremost, and then head back out into the pitch black night. Need I remind you, dear reader, this was the end of fall/start of winter in the English countryside. Why I thought this was the best strategy...well, I still don't know. So I head right back into the poisonous bush. And when I say bush, I mean it in the Australian sense, like the wild wild outback/jungle/wilderness sort of bush. I spent probably an hour out here, in total darkness might I add, to no avail. Especially since my method of searching was basically kicking the ground and hoping to hit something soft and leathery. But this was a NECESSITY! I needed my credit card and second form of photo ID to be let into another country! And considering I was heading to the home of my ancestors, the plush green countryside, the immaculate stone structured country of IRELAND....I was taking no prisoners. Except maybe some pheasants that got in the way of my determined legs.

Ok...So I gave up after an hour.


My next solution...wake up at 6am, look again.

Hell, why not? It's not like I was going to bed at 4 and had a whole afternoon and evening of traveling planned beginning less than 12 hours later.

So, up at 6 and my first stop was into the manor to ask the security guard if they had heard anything, and this is how the conversation turned out.

Me: (To 60 year old security guard reading the paper) Um hi...yes, hello...excuse me. Has anyone happened to turn in a black leather wallet?

SG: Wassthat you say?

Me: Um...did anyone happen to turn in a wallet..you know..that they might have found outside along the driveway?

SG: ......................................................Go to Student affairs. (back to newspaper)

Me: Oh....ok.......um thanks.

So, obviously he was just shrugging me off and getting back to his early morning business which I just had NO time for. So, back to the bush I went. But this time, I was prepared for the stinging nettles. I put on actual pants, pulled my socks around the bottom of them so no ankle flesh was visible, put on a black fleece jacket zipped up to my chin, black gloves, and beanie pulled down over my forehead. I wasn't letting any goddamn thing touch me this time.

I thought, hmmm well I put my pants down while I was in the middle of the stinging nettles....I better start there. So I spent the better part of an hour thrashing through the gardens/wild shrubbery of the manor drive, kicking and shredding my way through anything that might be concealing my wallet. I then decided to walk back down the entire mile since my ravaging of the manicured garden yielded no results. After one unsuccessful look up and down the driveway where I had such fond memories of breaking my foot, I thought I better double back around and try again. If you didn't conclude it yourself, you will now know that this calculated an entire four miles of walking, in the early winter air, up and down a gravel driveway.

This was fucking it....I was done. So over it. So over this god forsaken naked mile that just had no mercy upon me.

I took to the stinging nettles. It was their fault. They were the reason I was so hasty, so rash, so entirely instinctive like a wild animal in my naked plight. I started tearing, clawing, biting, raping any part of that damned patch I could find, probably yelling obscenities and verbally accusing wild plants for my misfortune. It was then, that the security van pulled up. It turns out they were called by that very special co-star in my humiliating moments (the assistant dean of students, Bronwyn) most likely because I was dressed as a bandit, tearing up plants, and swearing like a sailor at 8 in the morning on the school's front lawn. And this is the next conversation I had with the security guard...which I hope will be just as amusing.

SG: Oy.....what are you doing?

Me: Oh sorry....I'm just looking for my wallet.

SG: Is that you? I told you to go to student affairs.

Me: Oh, I just thought it'd be easier to look for it myself.

SG: No...no. I said go there, because they had a wallet turned in this morning.

Me: (standing in the middle of a patch of wild weeds, dressed like a snowman robber, red faced, panting) .............................................................................................................................................................................................ok.

So.....now is the time he decides to get SPECIFIC ABOUT THE SITUATION.

I walk back into the manor and before I get two steps in I hear a voice behind me, which happens to be my biggest fan.

Bronwyn: Riley!

Me: Oh...hi Bronwyn.

Bronwyn: Was that you outside just now?

Me: Yeah....sorry. I was just looking for my wallet.

Bronwyn: Oh God...I was just out walking and thought you were a terrorist.

Me.....oh yeah...ha....if I had a nickel!....right....heh...

Bronwyn: Well I have something for you!

(Extends her arm holding her baseball cap with my wallet sitting inside of it)

Me: OHHH MY GODDDDD. thank you so much!

Bronwyn: Oh yeah no problem, some man walking his dog found it along the side of the road.

Me: Weird I don't even know how that would have happened...crazy.

Bronwyn: Riley....um...do you remember seeing me last night?

Me: Yes. Yes I do.

Bronwyn:...right then. Thought you would have blacked that out. Well, off to bed with you!



And so concludes this tragic tale.