It was one of me and the boy's first dates
and I took him to the country to go fishing
on family land.
Two things that make me comfortable; fishing
and being there.
Brought my best friend along to make it three.
She'd never fished before and
he and I bonded
helping her untangle line and
teaching her to squish worms onto hooks
She's not a squeamish woman, by any means
But when she she caught a wiggling brim, I saw the
uneasiness in her eyes
as she contemplated how to get him free.
Noticing that we were short on hooks and beer
we decided to make a run to the bait store
about twenty miles down the road- a few miles of it unpaved
in a town called Cleveland
that somehow manages to be more boring
than anything in Ohio.
And who thought that possible?
We pulled up at the shop and since I was riding shotgun
and had just got paid-money burning a hole in my pocket
I offered to run in and grab some hooks
We'd drank a cooler full of beer and
we'd burned one on the way
so when I went in all of this hit me
and I scowled at the fluorescent lighting
and scoured the aisles for hooks.
Couldn't find them anywhere.
It was a bait store, and me being stoned
I walked around to make sure that they weren't hiding like a snake
waiting to bite me
Finally, I gave up and went to ask the woman at the register
Either she was elevated or she was 7 feet tall
Permed brown hair down to her ass
Curled and sprayed bangs.
Thick jowls and a mouth that looked like
it hadn't cracked in smile in twenty-something years.
I asked her for what we came to get and
she asked to see my license.
Odd, but I figured there was a reason
-when I was in high school, you'd get carded
if you were trying to buy eggs during Homecoming week.
I figured it was something like that
something to blame on teenagers and their pranks
So I handed it over and she turned around and reached up
for a black binder on a shelf behind her
and started jotting down my information.
I was starting to feel a little set up.
I looked out to the truck and shrugged.
"That'll be ten dollars."
My jaw dropped
"For some fishing hooks?"
"For a fishing LICENSE," she snarled
her Southern accent basically dripping on me
or maybe that was just spit.
"But...I didn't ask for a fishing license. I
asked for hooks."
"Well," she paused, agitated, "you SAW me get the BOOK out."
I nodded, it was true, I did and
not wanting to aggrivate her further by telling her
I had no idea what that meant,
forked over ten dollars for a fishing license
to fish on family land.
(c)ct 2010
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