Francesco wrote today…

Few cultures have as rich of a literary tradition as the Irish. And few literary traditions are as steeped in abject sadness, soul-crushing squalor and pub-related fatalities as that of the Irish autobiography. Yet each year we continue to be enthralled by books from authors that by all accounts should not have lived past birth. In honor of these fine men and women I present, via Francesco, the following template to help you pen your own award-winning Irish memoir, Mad Libs style. For example:

(gerund)
(vegetable)
(town’s sole economic lifeline)
(dearest childhood possession)
(body part of which there is only one).
(complete surname)
(chemical element for water)
(choose a gender)
(proper noun)
(verb)
(entrance other than door)
(woman’s name other than “Mom”)
(inanimate object)
(gimp extremity)
(colorful Gaelic phrase for “open cutlery drawer”).
(double-digit number)
(imagine the worst job possible for a woman, then imagine it occurring inside an underground factory).
(oh hell, you decide)
(medical term for “the sniffles”)

Now go visit Francesco and see where to plug your Mad Libs…

I Can’t Find Me Legs: A Tale of Growing Up Poor, Catholic and Eventually Blind in Ireland
By Going Like Sixty
It was day three of the Blessed Feast of the Prolonged Consumption and Father O’Hurley had just finished flogging me in the abbey. I put on the clothes my dear, defeated mother had fashioned me from discarded radishes and quickly ran past the abandoned Corvettes—only to learn that my dog had been sold to help pay for the removal of my wee brother’s sphincter.

These were tough times for the McSixty clan. A blight had destroyed all the Hydrogen, and we had just burned the last of the females in the house to stay warm. Still, we had faith in our M & M’s that He would be merciful and soon run the lot of us in our sleep.

Soon after I arrived home my father stumbled in through the coal chute, reeking of whiskey and Princess Diana. “Damn the cursed English!” he yelled at our pet drawer before his faulty elbow gave out and he crashed face first into the bolloxed knife tray.

With my father now dead, it was up to my mother to raise me and my69 siblings, which she did by getting a job in anus smelling establishment. Unfortunately, a few hours later while walking back from the prostitute cannery she was struck from behind, both sides and above from dog turds. She eventually died from phlegmengitus.

Twenty years later I moved to America.