WHY WE HAVE TWO DOGS, a brief timeline of events, by me.

Mid-October, 2009 - Halloween approaches, nights grow longer and darker.  I recognize that I am living in a real house, not an apartment, for the first time ever.  We have a yard, and a fence, and Texas sunflowers stretching towards the sun for at least the length of 3 football fields behind the fence.  I live in a subdivision, dammit.  I think about how no one I don't know can hear me from the floor above or below me.  One day, Boyfriend and I go to get cat litter from Petsmart for Jack, Boyfriend's impressively indifferent cat.  There is a van full of adoptable dogs out in the parking lot.  We decide to stop at Palm Valley Animal Shelter on the way home from the Petsmart.  I tell Boyfriend that I'm not going to get a dog, I just want to look.  The next day, I bring home a dog and call him Ace.  Within 24 hours I realize that Ace is a stupid name, opt for something more cat-like, and go with Felix.  I cut myself some slack with this one, because really, anything is better than his pound name, "Nestor the Dog Molester."  Actually, just "Nestor," but now you try saying it without the rest following along.  No one needs a "Nestor" living in their midst as the days grow longer and darker in the fall.  Spooky.

Mid-November, 2009 - Nestor the Dog Molester Felix is. humping. everything.  People, furniture, his poor innocent squeaky toys.  I know that I must get him fixed because my grandmother is coming to visit with my parents for Thanksgiving, and I cannot have this ex-molester humpy dog running around, messing up all of my Martha Stewart plans.  I don't know much about etiquette, but I'm guessing that there are good reasons that you don't have tea parties on a farm during mating season.  No esta bueno.  I call around to a couple of vets but, being a young professional struggling to get my sh*t together, I cannot find an appointment before my family comes to visit.  This is what is word vomiting out of my mouth at school two weeks before Thanksgiving.  The mother of a student in another class hears my words, and my distress, and as I remember she put her finger beside her nose like Santa before he goes back up the chimney, and said quietly - "I know a guy."  And I decided that I loved this woman, and I would follow her wherever she would lead me.  This is how I ended up in her driveway with Felix, as she acted as translator and I loaded Felix into the back of some man's green truck.  The man didn't speak any English, so I stumbled with my Spanish and told him to please be careful with my dog.  When he left, the student mother asked me what it meant, what I had said.  She wondered if it was perhaps a colloquialism from where I grew up in Maryland.  Then she parroted: "Listen with care to my danger." I had not meant to be so threatening, but it must have worked, because a day later, the guy brought Felix the dog back with a cone on his head, sans testicles.  I wrote him a check for 100 bucks and said "grassy-ass" before I went on my way. No grandma-humping this holiday season, Nestor.
<cue lonely desert music>
Meanwhile...
Boyfriend is applying to graduate school on the east coast, and so I am contemplating a move back to the east coast.  In preparation for potentially dangerous big city life, I have taught Felix to fall over and play dead when I point a finger gun at him and yell "BANG."  Never can be too cautious in times like these.

Spring 2010 - Boyfriend is going to North Carolina and I will live in my parents' basement until I find a job.  Maybe Felix and I will both play dead.

Summer 2010 - I am hired to work at a school in Brooklyn, New York.  I will live the city life.  It's a good thing I taught Felix about playing dead.  We move, and I bring dog treats in the car, in case we need reinforcement.

Fall 2010 - There is a fraternity of old Italian men who sit out on folding chairs on the sidewalk one block north of my house.  One has a huge nose, another has huge ears, and yet another has huge hands, presumably from all the internal processing their livers are constantly getting after.  They like to tell me if I am doing a good or bad job when I walk Felix on their section of the sidewalk.  I start my walks going north so that I can get their feedback.  Only they don't really say it so much as drunkenly sing it, just as I would if I were all alone and making up a song about tortellini while making spaghetti.  This is funny, entertaining, everything that I thought that Brooklyn would be.  I am an adult, living on Sesame Street, where mixed ethnicities and species are all just going about their day.  And then I loop up by the grocers, down around under the subway tracks, avoid the homeless man who lives in the box under the bridge, and back to my door.  I'm a city slicker.

Winter 2010 - The Italian Fraternity is getting bold.  They want to know the boy dog's name.  They say it is a cat name, and this not good.  But ees good that I have boy dog to protect me.  But ees bad that I not talking to dog more.  You must talk to dog.  He will do -eh- what you say.   I stop going north, and opt for the homeless man's sidewalk section.  He is much less invasive, I suppose because in this case I am the invader.

Spring 2011 - I can't afford Brooklyn.  Felix and I are both stir-crazy, and even as the garbage begins to thaw through the snow banks, we can't find enough greenery to make us believe that what we are breathing holds any semblance of oxygen.

Summer 2011 - My family has rules about these things, who you can live with and move to towns for, but I've decided to bend them.  Felix and I do not want to live in New York any more, so we will be adjourning to Boyfriend's country house in North Carolina.  We move in while we figure out what our next steps will be.  Felix learns to pee on the grass again, with one minor mix-up in a lobby on a very exterior-looking post.  We start every day with a big inhale of the actually wonderful smell of the converted tobacco warehouse that is Boyfriend's loft apartment.  I love this apartment, I love Boyfriend, I love my Felix, and Felix is learning about cohabitation with Jack the cat.  Jack the cat doesn't mind too much, because the loft has lots of incomplete walls that he can climb around on top of, far out of reach of anyone who would care to make him anything but indifferent.  Except in the mornings, when his hungry mrrreeeoooowwwllll shatters peaceful dreams.

Fall 2011 - Boyfriend, Felix, Jack, and I are all living together in a house that we rented.  It is the sweetest little white house, with a fireplace in the living room and a TV room that has a separate half bath to keep the litter box in, so that we don't have to smell that mess.  There's a fence out back, so Felix can play, and Jack attempts to hang himself on the fence.  We recognize that Jack has gone from indifference to disdain and sometimes psychosis, mostly because of the dog, in the way that he urinates in any pile of my things, including my open suitcases that contained most of my clothing, and smacks us in the face when he wants breakfast in the morning.  Claws first.

Winter 2011 - Boyfriend is still in graduate school and I am still teaching.  We wake up, he puts on his snuggle like a robe, and makes my coffee while I stumble without grace to get ready for work.  He sweeps through the sweet little house, slippers scuffling on the old hardwood planks, Jack mrrreeeeooowwllling, and Felix wagging.  He heats up water for me to dump on the windshield of my car, because it frosted over last night and we don't have a scraper.  Tonight it will snow, and I won't have work tomorrow, so Felix and I will marathon Downton Abbey.  But I don't know that yet, and I'm going to be late for work if I don't go now.

Summer 2012 - College Roommate and I wake up on the floor of the sweet little house.  Everything is moved out except for the air mattress, vacuum cleaner, and a few other essentials.  College Roommate came to visit so that she could see North Carolina, and it just so happened that the only way to make it happen was to come for the weekend before my departure.  Boyfriend has been working in Atlanta since May, and as soon as I get the sweet little house totally clean so that we can get the deposit back,  I'll go join him, Jack, and Felix in our new tiny apartment in midtown.  And eventually I discover that I successfully removed all of the evidence, except one sock that was hiding beside the dryer, costing us a couple hundred bucks from our deposit.  But first, roommate and I are going to check out a cool thing that we haven't checked out yet:  The Duke Lemur Center.  Must. get. lemur. themed. snow globe. christmas tree. ornament.

Summer 2012 - Felix and I have moved again, on one condition:  I am retiring.  Twenty-seven years old, and a retiree.

Fall 2012 to Summer 2013 - Hopeful.  Grateful.  Bored.  Discouraged.  Hopeful.  Grateful.  Bored.  Discouraged.  Hopeful.

Fall 2013 - Maybe I won't retire.  Maybe it won't be so bad to wake up and walk Felix around the block.  There aren't any fraternities around, and there's no bridge to walk under.  Baton Bob isn't so bad, right?  Transvestite Prostitute Gangs?  I'll hear them come clicking in their heels.  And Felix still knows how to play dead.  Back to work.

Winter 2013 - Jack doesn't pee in my stuff anymore.  Now he just pees on Felix's bed.  Just occasionally, just when he's decided that it's time for us to get a new bed for Felix.  Because, really, he uses it more than Felix does, anyway.

Spring 2014 - Fiance and I are going today to look at houses with his family.  I want one with a big yard and a gated front porch, for Felix.

First weekend in May, 2014 - It's moving day!  We found an awesome house with a gated front porch and a fenced in backyard and we are buying it.  Jack doesn't help us pack, he kinda just sits on the pillows and acts like his best indifferent self.  Felix wags and looks worried and wags some more.  I haven't mentioned his eyebrows.  He has incredible eyebrows.

June 2014 - Jack is not doing so well.  The vet says he has a bad gum infection and that we will have to get teeth taken out, because he isn't eating very much.  He's gotten so thin.  He doesn't mrrreeeooowwwll.  He curls up on my lap, sticks out his tongue, and closes his eyes while I pet him.  He purrs, and I can see his lungs filling, emptying.  Filling, emptying.  His spine is knobby under his soft fur.

July 2014 - I took Jack in to get his teeth removed today.  The vet just called and said he is doing fine now, but on the last stitch he flat lined and they had to resuscitate him.  That sounds more like the indifferent Jack I knew.  That's his old self.

August 2014 - Fiance and I have been talking about adding a second dog to our pack.  Felix loves to play so much, he would love to have a friend to play with.  So we tried dog-sitting a younger dog for our friends.  The other dog never met a cat before, and somehow we ended up with Jack clinging to the floor for dear life under the coffee table, where he was safe, as we dragged the other dog back outside to play with Felix some more.  When both dogs were safely outside, and we were inside with Jack, we heard a pfffft sound.  A new dog literally scared the sh*t out of Jack, right there under the coffee table.

November 2014 - The whole family is coming to our new house for Thanksgiving!  Felix is very excited.  He loves walks with his old aunts, Cinnamon and Sugar.  Jack is going to stay in the office where things will be calm.  We will go in there and give him some lap and petting time.  And we got him one of those cat heating pads, so he can have a lap in case we can't sneak away as much as we'd like.

December 11, 2014 - Fiance and I went to the gym earlier tonight.  When we came back, Jack was laying on the floor in the bathroom, heaving.  Fiancee scooped Jack up and I got the car keys, and we went into the dark night. Fiance carried Jack, petting his soft gray fur, and I drove. "I think he's gone,"  Fiance said.  He was still petting his soft, gray fur.  And still I drove.

December 13, 2014 - Realization: Jack wasn't really so indifferent, he was just a skeptic.

December 15, 2014 - Realization:  Jack won't be home when I get there.

December 19, 2014 - It is the last day of school before winter break.  We are watching A Wrinkle in Time.  It's terrible.

December 22, 2014 - I have a terrible headache.  I'm so tired.

December 23, 2014 - I have a terrible headache.  I'm so tired.

December 24-29 ~ celebratory Christmas haze, family, gifts, travel.

December 30, 2014 - I bet I'm having all of these headaches and feeling exhausted because I'm pregnant.  Accidental pregnancy, brought to you by yours truly, here to brighten your holiday and make you feel better about your life choices.  You're welcome, world.

Later that same day - I'm not pregnant, all we ever do is hold hands.  And now I'm sad about it.  But I did sleep until noon many days in a row, thereby accidentally quitting caffeine.  Also, the drinking. Melancholy and self-loathing, here to brighten your holiday and make you feel better about your life choices.  You're welcome, world.

January 1, 2015 - Last night, Fiance and I rang in the new year at an improv comedy club with friends.  One of our friends took home a puppet HR dolphin from the show Archer, and got a picture with the actress who does the voice for Pam.  Our friends have two dogs, and they sure are cute pups.

January 2, 2015 - "Fiance, can we go and look at dogs tomorrow?  I don't want to get a dog, just to go and look."

January 3, 2015.  Puppy O'clock - We drove to shelters all day long today.  This was a bad choice, because we could have spent our time in more useful ways.  Fiance leaves for DC on Monday, we do not need a new puppy right now.  One shelter requires home visits to check and make sure that the environment will work for the dog if it's a pit bull mix.  She is a pit bull mix, so she is going to come visit tomorrow.  Just to look.  Just to see if she will fit.

January 4, 2015 - She's still here.  We let the shelter guy leave.  They called her September because someone left her on the doorstep to the pound in September.  They weren't sure how long she'd have to stay at the shelter, because people don't usually like to adopt pit bull mixes.  Felix and September Lana have had zoomies in the back yard all morning long.  We are going to call her Lana, like from the show Archer, because Fiance wants to be able to yell it (like they do on the show) into the back yard, instead of "come."
Realization:  Jack made my heart more permeable.  Mushier.  I made Felix and Jack do a lot of things before I decided that they were the best of their kind, and I love Lana already.

Sky Mall

We've done a lot of traveling this summer, much of it via airplane.  Here is a brief post about all of the things that I want need from Sky Mall magazine, just in time for the beginning of the Christmas season, seeing as it is not yet Thanksgiving.  Sky Mall DOES make me feel like it's Christmas all year long.

First and foremost, somewhere towards the middle of the magazine there is a little display of 3 t-shirts featuring "dive bars" from all over the nation.  I know that these must be truly dive-ie bars because one of the shirts in the display is the little bird man from Swallow at the Hollow.  A few memories from Swallows:  The night that V and C cried over the best years of our lives being nearly over while singing Don't Stop Belieeeeeving, the night that K2Crs sang every memorable Disney song over whatever music was being played and called it 'lead team bonding,' and the night that I boldly got up the courage to wear sneakers with my "bar shirt" despite social norms indicating that this was clearly a poor  decision.  Everyone was too busy singing and/or being emotional over the music and the rim of their Bud Light to even notice my sneaker rebellion, so why this sticks out in my mind as a serious risk I can't really say.  Hence, item number one that I simply must own, the Swallow at the Hollow t-shirt.  To remind me that at any given time I'm probably being a little bit of an idiot.

Next up:  that alarm clock!  The one with the gradual noise, gradual light feature, where it mimics a natural awakening at sunrise, in a forest surrounded by gentle baby birds, all considerately chirping at a steadily increasing volume until you are fully awake, and totally rested, more equipped than anyone else to face the challenges of the day! Let's keep in mind that I am an adult who still has absolutely no difficulty sleeping in until 1pm if the opportunity presents itself, and if I'm excited about this, I'm pretty sure that everyone.else.in.the.world. has no. good. excuse. to be NOT excited for this technological advance.

Number three.  They've invented these portable grass boxes complete with a fire hydrant for people to put indoors so that their dogs don't have to go outside to pee.  Listen,  I only spent a couple years in Texas, but your blood gets really used to hot weather, and that's hard to bounce back from, and lately Atlanta has been really cold.  So when I have to walk alllllll the way down the breezeway, to the grass, so that Felix can... you know... I just picture luxe plastic grass and a tiny plastic hydrant and rainbows and dog excrement.  I'd keep it on the breezeway, not in the apartment (ew) and spend the extra time doing valuable things, like watching old episodes of 16 and Pregnant. Or something else.  I'm just saying, until I can get a real yard, how about a tiny plastic one for the dog?  'Cause, ugh, stairs.  And also, ugh, cold.

Next up, the WORLD'S LARGEST WRITE ON MAP!  That thing is flippin' sweet!  I would write all over it about territories that I have conquered, those that are next on my list of "To Conquer,"  and then I'd get all nervous and start second guessing my plan and take out a different colored expo marker so that I could make a new and different plan without erasing the first one, and then do that again with more colors, and then it would get all convoluted and crazy looking and then I'd probably end up in prison for conspiracy charges, and then when I got to prison (I'm imagining an Orange is the New Black scene here) I'd say, in a quiet but strong and confident voice, "LISTEN, B******, YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ME, BUT MY PLANS ARE DRAWN ON THE WORLD'S LARGEST WRITE ON MAP."  And they'd all back up off me.  Thanks for the shiv prevention, Hammacher Schlemmer.

Now I have to make a confession.  I had planned to keep going about all of the awesome stuff I want, but I forgot what the rest of it was (because I probably didn't want it that bad) and just took a brief trip to the Sky Mall website to see if I could jog my memory.  Ya'll, I just found a way to sort by popularity on the website.  Since I know you are dying to know, the current top 3 items at Sky Mall are... (drumroll on an upside down bucket)... a "Fine Cherry Finished Watch Cabinet" (for those concerned with the practical storage of their time pieces),  "My Adventure Books" which alter the story to feature your child (for children), and "NFL Wine Shoe Holder" (for those concerned with displaying their spirits on the high-heeled pedestal of their football team).  Aaaaand all of my Christmas gift idea generating is complete.  I can fit everyone I know into three categories:
1.  Watch-lover
2.  Child
3.  Lives in a state with a football team and/or drinks.

Pick my gift for the white elephant, you won't be disappointed.

Things got a little bumpy there at the end, but we've landed (aka, I'm outta here).  Thanks for flying and make sure you've collected all of your things before you exit the aircraft.

Gone Fishing

I always hated fishing.  It was boring to spend hours on our small recreational motorboat, to dip and roll in the waves, to hope to hook "a keeper" and to listen to Mom croon "Heeeeere, fishy, fishy, fishy."

The minnows were simultaneously the best and worst part.  Daddy would go into the bait shop with the yellow and white minnow bucket.  He'd come back with water sloshing out of the black grated trap door.  Shadows would dart around inside the bucket.  The minnows were so tiny and fast.  I would put my hand in the bucket and let them swim around it.  They kissed my fingers. I whispered my condolences.

Pop-pop loved fishing, and when he came with us the day was a real production.  We had to get up early, pack a cooler for lunch, hitch up the boat, drive to the dock, back up the car, unhitch the boat, wait for Daddy to park the car and get bait, wait for Mom to walk back to the car then back to the boat because she forgot to leave her engagement ring at home and she doesn't want to lose it, wait for Pop-pop to walk back to the car then back to the boat to drop off his false tooth because he forgot to leave his tooth at home and he doesn't want to lose it, wait for the boat engine to turn over, and then drive the boat real  s l o w  through the "no wake" zones that I swear were only put in place to test. my. childhood. patience.

Then we'd find a place where Daddy said the fish were biting.  Mom would say "No, they're biting down at the point."  Daddy would say "We're here now so put your line in and catch something."   Mom would put her line in but she would say "We aren't going to catch anything here, there are no fish."  I would just listen and whisper to the minnows.   Mom and Daddy weren't fighting.  Not really. That's just the way they talked. By now, Pop-pop had a tangle in his rig that required some quiet concentration to un-knot.

Twenty minutes or so would go by.  Mom would say "turn on the radio and see where the fish really are, I bet they're at the point."  Daddy would turn it on and some fisherman's voice would come on the speaker and say "we're really pulling 'em in."  Someone else would ask where.  But the fisherman wouldn't say where.  Fishermen are pretty sneaky about where they are finding fish, because it makes for better fish tales.  Mom swears that they are down at the point.  So Daddy says "get your lines in because we are going to the point." Mom and Pop-pop and me start to reel in our lines and Daddy starts to drive before Mom's is all the way up and she says "David."  Because her hook is swinging all around and she can't quite grab the sinker because we are not in a no wake zone.

The fast driving between places is my favorite part.  I abandon the minnows so that I can kneel in the passengers seat, letting the wind push my hair back.  Salty tears and sea mist mingle on my face because we are driving so fast that I have to squint my eyes.  Pop-pop has put his rig on the boat floor, so now his line is all tangled up again and Mom is laughing, saying that he better get it untangled before we get down to the point because that's where the fish are really biting.   Daddy is quiet.  And I am quiet.  And Mom is laughing and Pop-pop is making line-untangling sounds of frustration, but not real frustration.  More like "first-world problem with my fishing line" sounds.   And he smiles, and I can see where he left his false tooth in the car.  So we go to the point and the waves are really pitching and rolling, causing a whitecap foam that stretches out around us.  Daddy says "Put your lines in and catch some fish, because this is where Cherlie says they are."  Daddy calls mom Cherlie especially when they are having discussions about things like finding fish and reeling in lines before the boat starts and who is going to mow the grass because Daddy is getting to it and Mom can go do it real fast, right now.

Mom is waiting for Daddy to bait her hook, because she doesn't like to hook the minnows, and I don't like to, either, so I'm waiting for Daddy to bait mine, too.  Pop-pop is still untangling.  Mom drops her line in and I imagine her little minnow being pulled down, down, down by the weight of the sinker, but also jerked up from the pitching and rolling of the boat.  I feel bad for it, but then my hook is baited, and I think about how cool I am because even though I'm the youngest, I have a casting reel like Daddy instead of a drop line like Mom.  She doesn't know how to cast, not without getting tangled like Pop-pop.  Pop-pop has a drop line, but he tries to cast it sometimes anyway, which usually means that his rig gets tangled around the top of his rod and then he has to bring it into the boat to untangle it again.  He's still untangling, but Mom and I, our minnows are down at the bottom, trying to catch us some nice flounder.  And the boat is really rocking, and Mom says that's good because it will make our minnows look like they're dancing on the ocean floor.

Daddy isn't putting his line in because he's getting sea-sick, and Mom never understood how he could have been in the Navy because he has a weak stomach.  Not Pop-pop, though.  He has a good stomach.  That's why he can keep looking into the boat, trying to untangle his line.  He was in the Air Force.  I think he was an engine mechanic.  I can picture him working on planes the way that he's working on his fishing rig right now.  My stomach starts to feel funny watching him, so Mom says to look out at the horizon because then you feel like you're sitting still, instead of rocking with the boat.

Me and Mom are sitting above the cabin, with our legs hanging over the side so that when the bow dips down our toes dip in the water, too.  So I try to look at the horizon but I really want to look at my toes dipping in the water.  And we are all quiet for a while, thinking about things like not throwing up and standing on solid ground and pulling in the biggest fish so that later tonight at the campfire you can tell everyone about pulling in the biggest fish.

Then Pop-pop makes this kind of grunting sound and says "Jesus bum" because he never curses but sometimes he does say "Jesus bum."  And Mom looks at Pop-pop and I look at Pop-pop and Daddy looks at Pop-pop.  Mom says "David" and Daddy goes over to Pop-pop and there's a lot of blood in  Pop-pop's hand. There was a hook and fishing line and the sinker and now there's blood, too.  Mom says "Dad are you okay?" and I'm thinking I don't think he's okay, but he's saying "Jesus bum, I got it, Jesus bum."  Daddy hands Pop-pop one of the clean white rags that he keeps on the boat for things like wiping away fish guts and then leans over the edge and starts puking.  Mom hands me her fishing rod and says "Keep the rods pointed away from each other so that they don't get tangled" and pulls her legs back and goes through the cabin over to Pop-pop.  Mom says "Dad" and then she says "David" and Daddy is still looking pretty green, but he reaches for Mom's fishing rod and I hand it to him and he starts to reel it in.  And Mom says "We need to go to the hospital"  and the ocean is blue and the sky is blue and my dad is green and the clean white rag is red.  And Mom is saying "fast" and Pop-pop is saying "Jesus bum" and Daddy is saying "reel in your line, Ker Bear" and so I start reeling in my line because Daddy doesn't ever really say much, so this is important.  The boat is really rocking and Mom is saying "Dad stop pulling on it" and  Pop-pop is saying "Jesus bum, I got it, Jesus bum" but the pitching and rolling of the boat made him push the hook a little farther into his thumb.  The barb of the hook is making one side of his thumb turn very white and everything else in his hand is very red.   Our lines are reeled in and Mom is sitting by Pop-pop saying "Dad stop, David go" and Daddy is trying to get the boat started without throwing up on himself.  Daddy says "Ker Bear, you drive" and I know I'm not so good at driving but Daddy said, so this is important.

Daddy gets the engine started and I take the wheel and I'm steering but I don't know how to make it slow down so we're just going really fast, jumping over the waves, and stuff in the boat is thumping, and Mom and Daddy and Pop-pop are getting really jarred around and Mom is saying "Kerri slow down!  Dad stop!  David!" and Pop-pop is still pretty sure that he can get that hook out of his thumb, Jesus bum.  Daddy comes and makes the engine slow down and he tells me that this is the throttle and push it this way for fast and that way for slow, and I listen because this is important.

Then I'm driving and Mom is saying "Kerri not so slow!  Dad stop! David!" and then she starts to laugh a little bit.  And I put my face above the windshield because even though I'm driving a boat to the dock to the car to the hospital this is still my favorite part.   When we get to the no wake zone Daddy takes the wheel again because he isn't so green anymore.  Daddy says "good job."  Pop-pop is still making frustrated sounds -"fishing hook stuck in my thumb really far" frustrated sounds, and he still seems to think that he can pull the hook out of his thumb, Jesus bum, even though the barb is catching.  Mom is saying "Dad stop" but she's also kind of laughing still, and my Pop-pop smiles at her and you can see where he remembered to leave his false tooth in the car.  And I think about how much I hate fishing, and how this is another good reason why I hate fishing, and how I will bring this up the next time everyone wants to go through the production of going fishing. And I smile.