Specific, Pertinent Advice From Your Close Friend, Mathias

Not a day goes by without someone suggesting to me that making friends with a Leprechaun is one of the best things you can do in life.

"The pot of gold," they say. "The source of good luck. The constant companionship and deeply rooted camaraderie. Yes Mathias, on all accounts a Leprechaun is a fine friend to have indeed."

All correct and valid points. However, these positives hardly make up for the reality that there will be times when your Leprechaun friend takes his shirt off. This will happen – I assure you. The ramifications are drastic.

You probably wouldn't think that anything about a Leprechaun's image could be offensive. Picture a Leprechaun as they are typically portrayed in movies, in commercials, or on the news: the green topcoat and old-fashioned pipe, the buckled shoes and yellow stockings, the twinkling eyes and full red beard. A charming image, to be sure.

But underneath the snappy green blazer and ornate four-button vest hides a bulbous white canvas, decorated with unruly red hair and freckles the size of deer hoof prints. Imagine the sensation of staring directly at the sun, only the sun is two feet away from you and the sun's armpits smell of cabbage and corn beef.

Maybe you have a particularly strong stomach and can handle this ghastly sight – what about your loved ones? Let's say your Leprechaun friend accompanies you and your non-Leprechaun friends to a movie. How will you console your friends when your Leprechaun whispers across the aisle, "Is there anyone prettier these days than Scarlett Johansen? She's so pretty I could just take my shirt off." And he does. And your friends look to you with appalled, blaming eyes. What will you say?

Or imagine if you invited your Leprechaun friend to a family dinner. Surely, before the meal is served, the Leprechaun will regale everyone with his accent and Irish folk stories. But when the meal starts, the Leprechaun (as per Leprechaun custom) will remove his jacket and shirt to eat his meal half-nude. With the dinner candlelight illuminating his clammy, bright-white skin, everyone notices whenever a half-eaten potato scallop trails from his mouth and gets caught in his chest hair. Will your new friend reflect as poorly on you as the candlelight reflects on his zombie-white torso?

The discomfort that comes from either you or your loved ones will be enough to require a breaking up of sorts. This will be a most painful and pitiful separation. On the day you have decided to part ways, you will come home from work to find the Leprechaun (topless, of course) swaying back and forth in a rocking chair as a half-eaten bucket of fried chicken rests upon his protruding stomach. He will probably be watching an episode of CSI. The Leprechaun will know something is wrong when you somberly ask him to turn off the television and put down the three quarters-eaten bucket of chicken. (Leprechauns eat quickly.) There will be pleading and promises coming from him. "Ye can't do thes tah me! Pleaese! Me shirt'll never come off a-gain!" The pleas will pull at your heartstrings, but with the chest in plain sight, you will do what must be done. And before the night is through, your topless Leprechaun's beard will be soaked with tears and mucus.

He may return to your apartment with a mashed potato pie and the director's cut of Boondock Saints. "Raymember weht whey had? Raymember?" For a second, you might just consider letting him back into your life. But before you have time to respond, he will unconsciously be unbuttoning his shirt and sliding off the sleeves. And then you will raymember why you couldn't be friends with him anymore.

How do you spare yourself all this grief? Just deny friendship with a Leprechaun the next time one you meet one at work, church, or the mall.