Leprechaun Trap

Last night I helped Casey, almost 10, construct a "leprechaun trap" for St. Patrick's Day. She designed a clever little box (covered in cotton balls to disguise it) on a string and we carefully set it up so that the string was held tautly in place by the weight of a small pile of coins and other shiny things so that the box would fall on the little creature and capture it when it tried to take the treasure.

But this morning she awoke to find the coins gone and the trap on its side in partial ruins, alone with a "Kiss Me I'm Irish" shirt and this note:

Aye lassie, ye almost caught me but good this time! I had to call to me friends to help me escape – I was mighty afeerd ye would hear me, I was! They came a’scurrying from all around the neighborhood in order to help rescue me from “Caseystrap” which is what we are keen to call your diabolical device! It’s a good thing I owed them all a lot of money or they may not have tried so hard to save me! You are quite the clever bonnie and a worthy one to boot! I’m leaving this shirt to remember me by, for that’s the closest you will have hold of me!!

By th’ way….I took the quarters and left the stuff I cannot spend. I’m not a magpie, sweetie – I knows the difference between what’s valuable and what’s merely shiny!

Now it’s off with me for another year.
Ta-ta!!

That's one crafty leprechaun!