July 12, 2011
Last night on the sofa, Lisa and I were discussing things that held no particular allure for us. The topic came up after seeing an add for a golf resort, and Lisa stating that she just didn't understand why people golf, what was fun aboot it, what redeeming value it held. I countered that I didn't get fishing. It's incredibly boring and unless you are doing it for sustenance, it's nothing but cruelty to animals.
Which led me to this brilliant observation/analogy:
Fishing, to a fish, is like alien abduction.
Say you're a fish, just swimming around, minding your own little fish business, when suddenly, a large shadow is cast over you from a large shiny ship in the sky. Something is extended down from the ship and grabs you - something sharp and metal. Maybe it even pokes you in the butt (hello, aquatic anal probe), and drags up up, up, up.
You find yourself now in the alien ship, where everything is shiny and aluminum. The aliens roughly yank the probe out of you, leaving you permanently scarred for life - that is, if they let you live. You see other fish in a holding cell (or bucket), writhing around in pain and agony. You are examined, flipped over, poked, prodded. You see one of you childhood chums thrown on an operating table and gutted from one end to the other, his entrails tossed aside callously by this alien behemoth. You beg for your life, but without any water, you cannot make a sound. You gasp, your gills flapping uselessly. Your eyes begin to bulge. Finally, the alien probing is over and you are thrown out of the alien vessel, where you limp home, bloody, bruised, and shaken.
Of course, your friends don't believe you when you tell them the story. Why did they take you to begin with? Why didn't they kill you like the others? Where is this floating ship now?
You now live in terror, afraid of every shadow cast on the water above. Your friends think you are crazy. The authorities don't investigate, nor do they investigate the other disappearances (chalking them up to rogue fish joining roving schools or victims of food-chain violence). You know what you saw, what happened to you, and you know it will happen to others. You don't know why they took you, what they had to gain by doing so. Why did they maim you? Why did they terrorize you? Why did they turn your placid little fish life upside down? And when will it happen again?
So, yeah, I don't really understand fishing. It's all just a matter of perspective.
(My Uncle Bill is going to disown me for this...)
