When I was in high school, a group of us went to Ireland. It was quite an adventure, not least because we made the idiotic decision to rent a cottage which was 17 miles away from the nearest city, and we didn’t think about the fact that none of us would be able to rent a car. So we spent a lot of time together.

And we spent some time with the people we rented the cottage from. Alex and Viv were a very sweet and awesome English couple who lived on the property in a main house, and rented out the cottage along with an auxiliary structure. I’m not sure what they thought about us, or what the rest of the community thought of us, but we adored them. We loved wandering around the property, which was covered in gardens and crazy art, and periodically we had to use their phone in the big house or do our laundry, so we were reasonably friendly with them.

Around halfway through our stay, Alex and Viv invited us to dinner. One of us was a vegan, and two of us were vegetarians, which created some lively dinner table conversation, and towards the end of the meal, Alex mentioned that there were some rune stones and old cottages in the area which we might be interested in checking out. He said that if we liked, we could take a walk over and see them.

We would like, we said, and plans were made for a walk. Alex was sort of vague about how far away the cottages were, or where exactly, gesturing vaguely at the surrounding hillside, so when we got up on the morning of the walk, we weren’t really sure how to prepare. Fortunately we only had brought one pair of shoes over each, so at least three of us had combat boots, and the fourth member of our party had sensible sneakers. Pants seemed practical for walking, as did sweaters, since Ireland’s weather can be quite fickle in the Spring. Brendan, I believe, seized on the bright idea of bringing water, and then we all trouped down to Alex and Viv’s to start off.

Later on in life, I learned about the British passion for taking crazy insane hikes through all kinds of conditions and calling them “walks,” but I didn’t know about this then. So when Alex started charging straight up a mountain, we looked at each other with trepidation, and then dutifully filed after him. We straggled up to the peak for the better part of an hour, but we had to admit that it was worth the view; from the rocky crags on top, we could see most of County Kerry laid out before us like a patchwork quilt, and we could see down into the deep valley we were supposed to be traveling into.

After a brief rest at the top, we started going down the hill. I was filled with exuberance, so I started running down the hill, shouting “wheeeeeeeeeee!”

Until I stopped, rather abruptly, and realized that only my head and shoulders were sticking out of the ground. I had fallen, you see, into a peat bog. The rest of the party was initially concerned that I had been injured, but when I assured them that I was fine, they all started laughing. Which is, I suppose, reasonable, I’m sure it was a fairly comical sight, and I may have been laughing as well, at least until they pulled me out and I was streaked in orangish brown slime.

For the rest of the trip down the hill, my boots squelched and squeaked, but I was determined to remain in good spirits. After all, falling into a peat bog is a sort of authentically Irish experience, as is wandering around in a valley looking for rune stones which never turned up. But, by God, we had fun, and as we ambled out along the road which led into the valley, I thought to myself “man, I’m going to get a lot of mileage out of this falling into a peat bog story,” and then I tripped over the remains of a dead sheep.