“Of course, I knew that all fish had worms, Nathan. I was just testing you to see if you did!”
Then I laughed one of those laughs you do when your child has proved, yet again, to be more knowledgeable than you are.
It goes something like “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Then, I immediately stuck a Post-It Note on a portion of my brain. It was the portion that had the most brain cells left due to damage from Southern Comfort Sours in college and the daily 146 brain-numbing questions asked by my then 5-year-old. The note said, “Google worms and cod” tonight.
So, that’s not what really transpired. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, because if you have been reading each installment of this deep sea fishing saga like you were...
* An 18-year-old female with the latest issue of Cosmopolitan
* A 28-year-old with the latest issue of Vanity Fair
* A 38-year-old woman with the latest issue of Real Simple
* A 48-year-old woman with the latest issue of Arts & Antiques
* A 58-year-old woman with the latest issue of Redbook
* A 68-year-old woman with the latest issue of The Reader’s Digest...or...
* A 78-year-old woman with the latest issues of The National Enquirer and the Farmer’s Almanac
...you would have figured out the format of these posts by now!
I said…
“No, ooo, ick, gross, I didn’t!”
Nathan rolled his eyes; I was a failure in his eyes as a fisherman, because I didn’t know about the worms.
I asked, “Um, so, your Dad likes fish, right?”
Nathan said, “Yeah.”
I said, “Why don’t you take the fish home to your Dad then?”
Nathan said, “Sure,” and, of course, being totally grossed out and perhaps a tad diabolical, I knew I wanted nothing to do with the worm-filled fish and that Nathan would love to bring home “the catch” to his Dad.
I told everyone before and during this trip about my worm phobia. I didn’t share my black socks with sneakers phobia. I was going to be on the boat with a bunch of engineers for eight hours, and I was not going to walk the plank, unless it was in a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes, my last request pre-plank walking!
Amrit had questioned me up and down about the worms. I told her what I knew. I then told her that I was glad to give my fish away to someone else, given that I could just not deal with the worm factor having just master the icky clam factor.
Anyway, little did I know that even the fish I buy in the supermarket have worms. Well, hopefully, by the time I buy it at the supermarket, the worms are long gone. They actually have people whose job it is to remove the worms from the fish. Once again…ooo, ick, gross!
So, after you caught a fish on a trip like this, you had to de-worm your fish. Allegedly, you held a flashlight to the fish, and then removed anything that was embedded and round. Can you say Alien again?!?!?!
When I acted my age and not the age I wanted to be again (12), I realized that even if you didn’t get all the worms out, well, it was just more protein, right? When I looked back to my unemployed days of endless cycling, I thought about my bug-in to bug-out ratio; I ate (but not on purpose) a lot of bugs when biking. I guess it was really a matter of accidental ingestion versus known accidental ingestion.
At noon, we all reeled in our lines. I sat on the deck, drank a second beer, and soaked up the sun. Most people had gone to the rear of the ship to watch their catch filleted.
Jasjit came by, and I asked him where Amrit was. He said she was on the top deck of the boat. I decided to make my way up there.
When I got to the top, I found her. She said, “Come here!” We walked to the very front of the boat, which was high up over the water. I said, “This is beautiful.” Amrit said, “I knew you’d like it here.”
For the last hour of the trip back to the dock, Amrit and I remained there. At one point, she left to go to the bathroom. I moved to the very tip of the bow (my favorite place to be on the good ship Brenda&Steve, too).
My hair flew wildly about my face, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t care if I might look like a wreck after all was said and done. It was lovely to be there on that ship with all those people. I was lovely most days but it was largely due to the fact that my life was beautiful.
At one point, two guys who were about ten feet below me said, “Hey, you were almost doing that king-of-the-world-Titanic thingy there.” I replied, “Well, if I had a few more beers today, I might do that now.” As if out of a movie, they both put their hands out to offer me their beers.
It was as if I was being egged on to star in the “Girls Gone Titanic” video. I laughed hysterically and said, “No, thanks. Not this trip!” When I was hanging out there over the edge with the wind blowing in my face (at so many knots; thank you again, BFF Brenda!), my hair whipping my brow, and thinking “Shit! If I fell off of here, I’m so dead,” I thought even though I’m not exactly where I planned to be at this point in life, life is still pretty damn good thanks to my kids and my friends. ♥
You know, I even tickled her to try to get her to smile. She said that she looks better when she doesn’t smile. I find that hard to believe, and as times goes on, I will convince her otherwise...and get her to wear something pink. ♥
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