I was talking to my mother on the phone and she happened to mention that my dad was thinking about spear fishing. This is not at all unusual; they spend a lot of time on outdoor adventures especially on the water. Then she said he was making the spear himself and I thought that was kind of odd. I wanted to hear this plan directly from his mouth so I got him on the phone. I guess for some background and in the interest of fairness I should mention that my dad’s a really capable guy and holds advanced University degrees as well a vast knowledge of outdoor survival, hunting and fishing and a deep understanding ecological and biological science and conservation. But he’s also a little nutty. So I ask him where he got the idea and he said that he’d been kayaking in really clear waters and that he noticed while bird watching from the boat he could get really close to fish without them sensing his presence and he thinks it would be pretty easy to spear one. I should also mention my dad is the cheapest man IN THE WORLD. So instead of buying a spear he decided to, without any blacksmithing experience, make one in the work shed out back. So I ask him where we was going to get his design. He’s usually really thorough so I was expecting him to say something like he’d read some ancient Inuit plan from Greenland or something, but no he’d decided to wing it.

I’d almost forgotten about it until my mother called again about a month later. I guess my brother was home for a visit and they all decided to go spend some time outside so he was there for the maiden voyage of this spear-fishing scheme. As my brother described it later the spear was sort of a metal trident of a weapon. So they take the kayaks out on a lake and my dad spots his quarry. He sneaks up on it silently and throws the spear at which point the end of the spikes curled up, the spear bounces completely off the fish and the middle tine falls off. And as my mother tells it that’s when my brother paddled up and ask if we should just call him Ishmael from now on.

And you better believe I bring it up every single time he drags out the gymnastics crack.