I eat fish, but I don’t catch fish. Just like I eat cookies, but I don’t bake them. Instinctively fish know this about me—that I don’t catch them, not that I don’t bake cookies.
My son knows both. He also knows that I can be worn down by constant pleading and negotiating in the same way a mountain can be worn down by wind and rain—only faster. That’s how he finally persuaded me to take him and his friend fishing. He assured me he would never ask for another thing. He told me I could spend the time reading and walking around the lake. He said they would throw back any fish smaller than six inches. I should have noticed they didn’t bring a ruler.I should tell you that I don’t know how to clean fish, and, as it turns out, neither did they. The real fishermen in their lives have never seen fit to bring home any of the fish they’ve caught. But there were no real fisherman available — only me, the one in the family who believes fishing is what you do if you forgot to bring a book to the lake.
I did remember a book, so I spent two glorious hours reading and walking — the calm before the storm. I could see the boys across the lake. I didn’t hear any whooping and hollering, which I assumed meant the fish weren’t biting. To someone who eats fish, but doesn’t catch them, two hours seems like a long time to fish without any luck. I didn’t care; I was enjoying myself. I honked when it was time to leave, and they started back around the lake without argument. It was all going so well that I decided I might even take them fishing again. I’ve since changed my mind.
Eventually, they made it back to the car, but what was that? They had three fish on a stringer. The irony was hard to miss; they never bring fish home when they go with real fishermen, I take them once and they bring home three. They were small and they were dead, but they were fish.
We drove the more twenty minutes into town with the dead fish wrapped in plastic bags — maybe to show them to real fisherman before we disposed of them. My son’s friend said he thought he felt them move. I thought that was just wishful thinking — until I saw it myself in my kitchen moments later. In case you’re wondering, that’s when I changed my mind about taking the boys fishing again.
We had two choices: Put the fish in a bucket and drive them back to the lake to grow up, or learn to clean fish fast. Driving them back seemed like a waste, but so did cleaning them. Let’s just say, it would give whole new meaning to the term “petite filet.”
While I was pondering these options, the fisherman came up with a third: They put the fish in the bathtub. The fish were happy. The boys were ecstatic. I was not. They thought the fish would make good pets and could live in our bathroom indefinitely. I was concerned about bath time. Besides, while my bathtub may be good habitat for any number of species, fish probably isn’t one of them. I repeated my call for options 1 or 2.
We didn’t think of Google which, now days, is how you learn to do everything from bake brownies to deliver babies. Instead the boys started making phone calls leaving me to wonder; with all the real fisherman they apparently know, how did I get stuck taking them fishing. They did get a few tips by phone, but not what I was hoping for: a house call by an actual fisherperson.
My mother, who lives with us, finally came to the rescue. In her 94 years she’s cleaned more than a few fish. She gave the boys some pointers and the crisis was averted. I was saved a trip to the lake. The boys learned to clean fish. And there are three small ones in my freezer and none in my bathtub.
(For fish cleaning tips, contact drosby@rushmore.com or see www.dorothyrosby.com.
