Write a piece of fiction describing the incident that gave rise to the phrase, “third time’s the charm.”

Tim was a young man working in a pub in New York City back in the early 20th century. He had migrated from his native Ireland as a young boy of just 8 years old and had settled down to live in the new country. He liked his job as the bar tender of one of the busiest pubs in all of NYC and he loved the chatter and the regular patrons who came in to drink their ales, lagers & stouts alike. Now 18 years since he had arrived in America he had enough money to get a small home to call his own and the only thing that was missing was a woman to call his own. Tim was usually a shy lad growing up, especially when it came to the women, but now he was more confident that he could convince a nice pretty girl to settle down with him. So he was looking around for his options and looking at the girls that he knew and that lived in the neighbourhood. He finalized his list to 3 of the nicest young women he knew – Betty the butcher’s daughter, Catherine who worked at at the post office and Linda who worked at a gift shop.

Tim went to the butcher shop at 10 the next morning and decided to call on Betty. However when he arrived there he saw Betty cursing and yelling, using a huge butcher knife and cutting pork & beef sausages with such vigour and venom that he got scared. When she saw him Betty stopped what she was doing and greeted him – it was obvious that she liked him but what he had just seen had put him off. Tim asked for two raw steaks, bought & paid for them and left quickly. 1 down and 2 to go, Tim said to himself and decided to go visit the florist shop where Catherine worked. Just as he was about to enter he saw Catherine, who had quite a temper, yelling at an old couple who was holding the line as they couldn’t put their package in order for it to be sent out. Young Catherine was yelling and swearing at them and this scared poor Tim away. This time, he didn’t even bother to go say hi but just beat a hasty retreat. Almost about to give up he saw that he was at the right near the gift shop where Linda worked and thought “what the hell, I might as well try her as well!” and so he went in. He was surprised to see a very neat store with wonderful smelling fragrances coming from inside. Linda had some candles and flowers in every nook & corner. He said hello to Linda and with her help, bought a nice gift for his friend’s wedding the following week. It was obvious that the quiet, gentle and lovely Linda was the kind of woman he was looking for.

Before he left he asked her out to dinner at his place the following Sunday, where he proceeded to cook the steaks for their dinner. Soon the two were in love and when he finally had the courage, Tim asked her to marry him. She said yes and gifted him a bracelet of lucky charms as a wedding gift. At that moment Tim thought to himself “Third times the charm!” Poor Tim, within a month of the getting married Linda would greet him whenever he was late coming home by – yelling & swearing at him!!!