Well Don, it's like this, and I got this straight from the horse's end, if you take my meaning.

My wife and I were driving the rental car back, gonna fly outa Dublin Airport, this past Friday morning. We had to top off the tank, so we pulling into a petrol station in Coolquoy, County Dublin -- I don't remember the brand, but it was one of the two stations along the R135 so it shouldn't be too hard to find.

I paid and when I came out there was a Garda (i.e., cop) there. He asked if I was Canadian and I said no, I was from the US. "Close enough at this distance," says he, "we need your help."

So I followed him around to the back of the station and there were four Gardai (copS) holding the scummiest looking human being it's been my misfortune to see in a very, very long time and I've seen some scummy ones, let me tell you.

A Sergeant came up and said, "Do you think, Sir, you could translate what this...personl...is saying? We think he wants to flip boltholes, but sure, it's hard to tell."

What the pitiable excuse for a human being was saying was very much like "Lissen you flippin' boltholes! Some Sudbury skanks tricked me and hit me on the head and when I flippin' woke up I was in a crate with a two-four of flippin BLUE and dozen day-old Tim's and it was flippin' COLD and I was goin' somewhere! So I figgered out I was in an airplane and would be rescued when I got to where ever I was goin' and then I'd hitch back from Toronto or Ottawa or where ever the flip I was and fix them flippin' bolthole skanks. Only when I woke up it was quiet and I could tell I wasn't in the flippin' airplane anymore, so I broke out of the crate and when I got outside I saw I WASN'T IN FLIPPIN' CANADA! I was so flippin' mad I screamed, which made somebody yell at me and I told them what a flippin' bolthole they were and when he came out he was like a flippin' TRUCK! So I ran. Finally I smelled (and I didn't FLIPPIN' BELIEVE IT!) what was Tim's coffee AND donuts! In where ever the flip I am! Next thing I know these four flippin' boltholes are draggin' me back through the window! I think they're cops and I'm Shane McBride of Blind River, Ontario, CANADA!"

I looked him over, such as there was to look at, and asked him quietly, "Do you know Rapaire?"

He broke into a long, not very creative, string of curses until one of the Gardai told him to "shut the feck up." I turned to the Sergeant and said, "Sergeant, I think this is Shane McBride of Blind River, Ontario. You'll have to check with the Canadian Embassy, but if it is the McBride person....

"Well, Sergeant, Shane McBride is probably the worst person in all of Ireland's long history. He betrayed Robert Emmett to the Brits, pointed out where Roger Casement was hiding in that tennis court, poisoned Theobald Wolfe Tone, sold out Owen Roe, blew out the lights on Banna Strand, informed on the Bold Fenian Men, laughed and coughed all over Pearse as he read The Declaration in front of the GPO, loaded the rifles that shot James Connolly, and gave Cromwell directions to both Armagh and Kilkenny. He got worse as he grew older."

"Right, Sir! Thank you!" said the Sergeant. Then he took out a truncheon and said to The Pitiable Excuse, "Come along, me bucko. We've got a right nice place fer yez."

I went back into the station, bought a dozen of Tim Horton's donuts which I gave to the Gardai, and then I got in the car and we left.

Just doing my bit to help law enforcement, Don.