Here, fishy fishy!

K and I are having dinner with another married couple this evening, because that's what married people do--have dinner, then talk about what we'll be eating tomorrow. The difference is that this couple is 9-months pregnant. That essentially means we'll never see these two people again, until years later when we'll get a letter from the child asking us to buy magazine subscriptions.

But such is life, if you want to be married. And K and I will be no different someday soon. It'll be our 10-year dating anniversary in February (married for...3?), and we've long run out of funny anecdotes. We'll need to talk to and about our children very soon or else every dinner we'll be simultaneously staring into our stews, wondering when would be a good time to turn on Nick at Night.

But I do have some anecdotes that I've never gotten around to telling K. And if she knew them, she might think twice about whether children are really worth all the trouble.

I spent my adolescence in Alaska, which is a slushy, bright, blustery place with tall trees and thick beards. I couldn't have grown up in a better place. And although my parents weren't exactly from the wilderness, I think the Anchorage Welcoming Committee bestows hatchets and compasses to people in the airport, like Hawaiian leis. The moose can be violently territorial, though, so the socialized hatchets might have been the result of a lawsuit.

Anyway, my childhood memories are made up of mental slide shows, rather than one continuous film strip. But most of those pictures have trees and fish in them. My dad and I went fishing a lot. At least, it seemed like a lot. And one childhood trip stands out from the rest. This was the time that I had diarrhea. I was probably nine.

In order to understand the events of the day, I've gotta get some facts in:
- We usually river-fished, which I totally prefer.
- My dad always made sure that I somehow caught the biggest fish of the day
- I think I got sick a lot. I remember having a lot of canker sores. I believe I went an entire year with the same cold.
- A lot of what I'm about to say may have happened at different times, so this might be more Biblical than C-Span-ish (Wow, does C-Spanish exist?)

I was also a motion-sick kid. So much so that I couldn't fly anywhere without vomiting. And on this day, sitting in a boat with my dad and some guide who may or may not have been my dad's coworker on the choppy river in an aluminum boat with an outboard, the mixture of exhaust and fish smells weren't sitting right. Maybe I threw up? Maybe I didn't? I do know that I crapped my pants.

Things were going everywhere. We pulled off to the shore and my dad told me I should crap behind a tree. So he escorted me to a tree, where I let it all go. Keep in mind that it's pretty hard to crap in the woods, but also keep in mind that I was a gifted child. And if it wasn't enough for my dad to excuse himself from the boat because his son was gross, or to brace his son while he crapped on the forest floor, but he also found some moss to clean me off. And I think he did it. He wiped my ass with moss. This is the essence of my blog. This is as uncomfortable of a position as it gets. For both of us. I'm sure he'll get me back when he's old and incontinent.

I doubt I ever thanked him, but they don't exactly make Hallmark moments for things like that.

Then it got weird.

So now I'm totally dehydrated, my stomach's in knots, and we're miles from the car. Somehow, we come upon what I guess was a commune. I mean, I don't remember campers, just dozens of people living on the riverbank--kids and adults, sharing tarps, purifying water. I must have smelled pretty bad. Yet my dad must have negotiated with the tribe that I could do some recouping in their hammocks. I think they actually had television, and I watched it with some of the woodsmen.

I don't remember getting home, but I'm sure my dad does. We were a long car-ride away from home. He still probably convinced me that I caught the biggest fish that day. Whatever motivated my father (and mother, for that matter. She did the laundry, after all!) to be as selfless as they were and are, I hope I get that attribute when I have kids. I will pass on my angler skills. I will carry moss at all times.

So K, when do those newfangled robot children come out? Christmas?