I’m sitting here watching them fish for fish that they have no intention of eating.  The hooks are de-barbed for someone’s comfort and the creatures foolish enough to get caught are un-hooked and always put back into the river, sometimes unceremoniously because in their panic they forget their English and don’t understand the words, “it’s OK little buddy, just calm down while I take this piece of metal out of your mouth with these pliers.  No really, I’m trying to help you.  Just sit still.  You won’t feel a thing.”

The process brings back memories of fishing with a troglodyte I dated many years ago.   I caught my first fish and when he took it from me to remove the hook, he told me to turn my head away which I did just in time to hear the ripping sound as the cave dweller tore the hook out of the poor fish’s lips.  After he threw it back into the water the lout tried to convince me that fish feel no pain because they’re cold blooded.  “Take that, you stupid unfeeling waste of space!” I say in my Fantasy Go Back In Time to Erase Evil People and Bad Memories World, wherein I enjoy the sensation of planting the heel of my Doc Martens into his soft, empty forehead….how does that feel?  Eh?  Eh??

Whew!  I feel so much better now.

Where was I?  The pastoral scene playing out before me is much more serene but I’m too chicken to get up close and watch.  I have bad Sunfish karma and even saving a Muskie about twenty years ago hasn’t earned me the kind of forgiveness I need.  Sometimes it’s just better not to know.