A friend and I made plans to meet on St. Patty's Day at Ye Old Horse and Monkey to toss back a few in honor of the Emerald Isle.

     Both of us are sons of Erin. Tradition demands we mark the occasion.

     At least, that's what I told my wife.

     Well, alright, we're sons of sons of sons of Erin, but on St. Patrick's Day even a Scotsman will take the opportunity to celebrate  - as long as someone else is buying.

     It had been quite a while since I was last out on the town - what with my family responsibilities, my duty to work and my complete lack of money - so you can imagine how disappointed I was when my friend was detained at another engagement. I stayed  home and spent the night with my stereo playing the Cranberries, Pogues, and Titanic soundtrack while muttering about the price of freedom and potatoes.

     It's about as Irish as I can get when a bar's not involved.

     Fortunately we both found ourselves free the next night and agreed that when it comes to St. Patty's Day, it's better late than never -"no never, no more".

     Well, as soon as we got to the bar, we started out by toasting good old Ireland. We quickly followed by toasting all of it's counties. Then we moved to its major cities, significant historical landmarks, important roads, big power generation plants, sizeable trees and large rocks. When we got to the saints, I knew we were stuck there for the night.

      We'd barely made it to St. Fintan before I was forced to accede to the only demand which beer makes.

      What goes in must come out.

      I made my way downstairs to the facilities.

     There's something reassuring about a room with a drain in the middle of the floor. It seems to say "Don't worry friend, there's not a lot you can do to mess up down here."

     Having accomplished my mission, I turned to the sinks. Beside them, hanging on the wall, was a large box with coin deposit slots and a sign plastered on the top which read "Convenience Centre"

    I'm well acquainted with boxes with coin slots hanging on the walls of bar bathrooms. They're standard issue, although I've always assumed that any guy who would actually have the moxy to stuff money into one of them was obviously too drunk to make use of the product. But this was the first time I've actually seen one being called a "Convenience Centre."

    And then I noticed it was divided into three distinct sections. From the first section you could buy breath mints. In the second section, you could by those latex things tough guysin high school used to carry around in their wallets so long they would leave a ring shape in the leather. (Which, despite their boasting, spoke volumes about their claims of purported conquest.)

     And the last section offered headache medicine.

     Any other box hanging on a wall in a bar bathroom I'd seen before consistently offered one product and one product only. Why include breath mints and aspirin?

    And what kind of niche were the makers of this box trying to hit? Stinky-mouthed migraine-suffering swingers? Even I could see this was not a growth market.

     I returned to the bar with a head full of questions and Shirley, our barkeep for the evening,  knowing that I was a complete idiot, did not call the police. Instead she told me about what has to be the strangest job in Elgin County.

      She told me the story of the Condom Man.

    It seems that the Condom Man is a solitary figure who comes to town regularly to collect  coins deposited in the Convenience Centre. No one knows his name. No one asks. And he never announces his presence when he arrives. He just goes about his business, opening the machine and emptying out the money.

      He then goes back to the bar where, in accordance with a contract with the bar owner, he is to leave a percentage of the coinage.

     Apparently the good lady who tends the bar during the day has developed something of a ritual concerning this transaction.

      He always comes to the bar, smiles and holds out a handful of coins for the barmaid. Without fail, the bartender gestures to an ashtray on the bar. The Condom Man, again denied human contact, sadly puts the coins in the ashtray and quietly leaves for his next assignment.

    "I don't blamer her," said Shirley "There's no way I would touch those."

     But her story generated more questions than it answered. Who was the Condom Man? Where did he live? And what would drive a man to do that kind of job?

    Yet my friend and I agreed that the Condom Man had a lesson for both of us.

    Even an Irishman has someone to look down on.