The Little Girl and the Sea

Okay, it was not the sea... it was a reservoir. And it was frozen. I was bundled from head to toe in my snazzy pink jumpsuit ready for a day of ice fishing. Ice fishing is truly boring. You go to a frozen lake... or reservoir. You drill a hole in the ice. You drop your fishing line through that hole. And then you wait. You sit, and stare at the tiny hole and wait for a fish to come along and eat the marshmellow off your hook. All in all it is a wearisome day. But, to a 5 year old, ice fishing is fun. You can scoot around on the ice, you can play with the fish that have already been caught and you can drop things down the hole that you are fishing out of. Unknown to my five year old self, this is a verboten activity. It scares the fish. But it's fun to drop things down the icy hole and watch them sink into the dark waters below, when your father is not watching. Now, as I was closely watching the hole, the fishing pole line started to bob. My father, who was trying to reel a fish in on another hole said, "go ahead, reel your fish in." I was scared. What if the fish pulled me down this hole? I reluctantly took the pole and started to extract my fish from the reservoir. But this fish was HUGE. It was putting up a fight. It was a battle of wills. But... my will was wanting to give up. "Dad the fish is going to drown me!" "That fish won't drown you," my dad said, "just keep reeling it in." My arms were getting tired and the fish was pulling me closer towards the hole. "He's going to kill me dad. He's going to drown me!" Just then up popped the biggest fish I've ever seen. It was the biggest fish I've ever caught. We both fell to the ice in exhaustion. By now, my dad had reeled his tiny fish in and had come over to my fishing hole. He unhooked my magnanimous catch from the hook and said, "Well, that is a big fish." As I posed for my picture, with a fish almost as big as myself I said, "We should get this one mounted on the wall." My dad said, "We only mount the things I catch." Apparently when your five, you've got no authority.