Stolen off the web

[hammercarp]

My neighbor Crandall stops by.

 

“How are you doing?” I ask.

 

“Everything is nearly copacetic,” is his reply. “I was out fishing on Lake Inferior yesterday. I had my rifle with me.”

 

“You had your rifle with you in the boat?” I question. “Why?”

 

“I had to take the rifle. I was out of dynamite. Besides, I didn’t have a fishing license, but I had a hunting license. That lake is full of sushi. I got my old rowboat into the water. The boat is sort of a gangrene color just like the lake. It felt good to have both oars in the water. I shouldn’t tell you this, but many folks tell me that they don’t think you have both your oars in the water. I put some numbers and a couple of advertising stickers on the old boat so that it looks like a NASCAR winner. When I make up my mind to drown a few worms, you couldn’t change my mind with a sledgehammer. I planned to spend a day fishing because the time spent fishing doesn’t count against my allotted time here on Earth. I’ve forgotten more than I’ve ever known about fishing.”

 

“You should be a good fisherman. You’re a great liar,” I say.

 

“So, I’m in the middle of Lake Inferior, enjoying myself. I was having a cup of coffee, while smoking a cheap cigar, and listening to the Twins game on the radio. Then things went horribly wrong.”

 

“You caught a fish?” I ask.

 

“Worse than that. A carp jumped into the boat and began to flop around and batter me like a fish. The carp in Lake Inferior have teeth like an alligator and the disposition of a gator with a toothache. I was afraid that carp was going to take me to Davy Jones’s Locker, so I grabbed the gun.”

 

“Oh, no!” I say.

 

“I shot at the carp.”

 

“Did you miss?” I ask.

 

“No, I hit the bottom of the boat. Shot a hole clean through it. There’s a reason they don’t sell boats with holes in the bottoms. Water comes in through them. Fortunately, I’m blessed with a rugged resourcefulness of the kind that made Lewis and Clark, Martin and Lewis, John Wayne, and Wayne Newton the fearless explorers that they were. I stuck a finger in the hole of that rowboat. If I would’ve had some chewing gum, I could have plugged that hole with some ABC (Already Been Chewed) gum. Note to self—never leave home without some gum duct taped to my ankle.”

 

“That has created a disturbing cartoon bubble over my head,” I add.

 

“I had a finger stuck in the hole in the bottom of the boat and I grabbed one of the oars with my free hand and began rowing. That’s what you do in a rowboat--you row. The problem was that with just the one oar in the water, I began to row in a circle. I felt like I was on a merry-go-round without the merry part. In order to keep from rowing in circles, I would switch arms on the oar. I’d pull my finger out of that hole and replace it with a finger of my other hand. Each time I did that, I would let a bit more water into the boat. I didn’t have a bucket to bail water with, but that was OK. I didn’t have a hand available for bucket duty.”

 

“Quite a predicament,” I assess shrewdly.

 

“I rowed with one hand and spun one direction, and then I switched fingers in the hole, letting more water into the boat. Then I’d row with the other hand, spinning the boat in the opposite direction. Good times. The boat was spinning as if it were about to go down a drain. I finally had let enough water in that the boat began to sink. I know the captain goes down with the ship, but this was a rowboat, for crying out loud.”

 

“What happened?” I wonder aloud.

 

“I had felt like a duck out of the water with my finger in that hole and rowing with one oar. Suddenly, I felt like a duck in the water. The boat sank and took me with it. My vocabulary began to deteriorate at that point. I emerged from the water and crawled soggily onto the beach like something from the movies.”

 

“’The Creature From the Black Lagoon’?” I suggest.

 

“Some guys are a lot smarter than they look. It’s too bad that isn’t your case. My boat, my rifle, and my radio are on the bottom of Lake Inferior.”

 

“What happened to the carp?” I ask.

 

“It swam away. I never heard a fish laugh before.”