Gone Fishing!

I have argued about some stupid things in my time – hair-cuts, TV programmes, and comic heroes – but never fishing. Quite how it happened is anyone’s guess. One minute I was there saying how a friend of mine goes and I’d like to go with him and then out of the blue – “You’re a murderer. You love to kill.” Now correct me if I’m wrong but a murderer kills people not animals. “But people are animals.” There was no way out. I was trapped in a meat eaters nightmare. Everywhere I turned I had blood on my hands. Even the king of comebacks “but you’re a vegetarian and you still eat fish” was met with the retaliation “your so pig headed.”

In hindsight I should not have said what I did. I replied in kind so to speak. “You’re the one whose pig headed.” Opps. A tirade, which Donald Trump would’ve been proud of, followed. I couldn’t say anything. In the end I had to leave. She stood in the doorway waiting for me to apologise, but the apology never came. She was being pig-headed and the simple use of the word pig meant that she hated me for the rest of my life – for the time being at least.

I don’t blame her. Let’s face it. A woman’s body, let alone her mind, isn’t hers for one week of the month and, as if that isn’t enough, she is a girl who particularly doesn’t like things to suffer. However, people don’t go fishing to watch fish suffer. They go because it’s sport. “Sport?! That’s worse!” Wrong again. I decided to cut my loses and run.

The day after an argument is always filled with ‘if only I said this’ or ‘what if.’ But this argument was about fish and I’ll be damned if I go over it in my head more than is necessary. I doubt very much fish argue about humans.

It’s unusual how relationships are like some sports. The excitement of football, the patience of cricket, sometimes even the tactical nuance of American Football is required. Fishing on the other hand is a rather saddening comparison. Catching something only to let it go. Watching it swim off into the big blue ocean never to be seen again. Normally it’s the man that’s the fisherman, coaxing the fish in and deciding or not if he wants to keep it, tossing it back in if it’s not to his liking.

But this time it’s the other way round. I’m the fish and despite the fact my lip is well and truly hooked she could get up at any moment and row back in to shore. Leaving me to flap around on the wooden slats of the boat until I run out of air. Oh, the world can be such a cruel place. Especially if you’re a fish.