Whale of a Tale

1/22/07


I used to think that few things could be more savagely boring than watching fishing on TV. Maybe reading a book about fishing, that might do it. But today I was treated to another dreary medium of the "sport;" someone telling a fishing story. I wasn't the one to whom they were speaking, but unfortunately I overheard it, despite my best efforts at distraction by repeatedly punching myself in the testicles.

You know those people that start conversations as if you were already speaking to them? It was rather like that when this woman turned to her cubicle neighbor and said "So we went out this weekend…" and launched into some tale which was a non-sequitor preamble setting up her glorious fish story, which it turns out happened to someone else. What's more mind-liquefying than a fishing story? A fishing third-hand fishing story about people you don't know, and events that could only be considered interesting and exciting if stacked up against watching a banana turn black.

Apparently this champion of all yarn-spinners came home Saturday night and was told by…someone…that "oh you just have to call Jake*, he's got quite a fishing story to tell you! So I called up and said 'I hear you got quite a fish story to tell me…"

I shit you not that's almost verbatim. Up to this point we have:

A. A fishing story
B. That happened to someone else
C. Involves the detail that the genesis of the tale came from a fucking phone conversation.

And what, I know you're all asking, was the core of this amazing anecdote? Well, it seems some guys went fishing and caught a 3-pound and a 4-pound catfish. Wow. I know, I already checked Google News to see if there was a more in depth account of it, maybe off the AP wire or something, but no luck. Just some crap about Iraq or something. Oh! I forgot to tell you! They used cut-up perch for bait. HA-HA-HA-HAAAAA! Holy shit! Pass the Tylenol!

For the record, that is not a story. That is nothing. Unless you hauled up something that looked like this…



…you can save me a lot of pain and just go see how long you can stare at the Sun.

I don't know how much the behemoth in the above picture weighed, but just for comparison's sake, this is a photo of a 3-pound bass:


So...you know...way to go, guys I'll never meet but now hate by virtue of your friend relating your harrowing tale of fighting to a draw what a tiny child seems mildly unimpressed with.

I can only assume that, for most of the population, talking to other people about inane, small-talk bull-hockey evokes some kind of pleasure, and this woman was just sitting around wracking her brain for something to say to someone, and this was the best she could do. According to my informal analysis, 75% of America is afraid that if they don't speak at least once every twenty minutes their bowels will fall out and be eaten by zombies.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go do a mountain of cocaine to attempt to damage my brain enough so I lose all long term memory of that story.


*Name has been changed because I don't remember the real name.