“We’ll just pop in for a minute or two…”
I watched my wife’s face as the words slipped from my lips. The newspaper lays spread in front of me on the kitchen table, the words “BOAT SHOW” drawing me in like a ball bearing to a magnet. My honey-do list was as getting long on “do’s” and short on “honey”. I had run out of reasons not to clean out the basement sometime back in 2011 and my wife had been waiting for a cold, quiet Saturday to stand on the steps and crack the whip while I worked like a mule. She didn’t understand that fishing every weekend in the summer and hunting every weekend in the fall had left me tired. How much is one husband expected to endure? After all, I am a man, not some kind of basement cleaning machine.
The advertisement was just the diversion I needed to get me out of the basement and on the deck of a boat, even if there was three feet of snow on the ground. It was March and the bass fishing itch was starting to get unbearable.
“We’ll pop in for a minute or two and then we’ll get back here and I’ll have all afternoon to clean out the basement.” I ventured hopefully. I am all man and I don’t need permission to do what I want but I also prefer my wife to be happy. The food is so much better when she’s happy. It doesn’t taste so arsenicy.
“Just a few minutes? The last time that worked you were wearing pants that had a 32 waist.” She said with a grin on her cute, little mouth. I assured her that we wouldn’t be there long. She told me the basement really needed cleaning. I gave her the puppy dog eyes that usually get me what I want. She claimed she couldn’t find the washing machine and hadn’t seen the furnace in 8 months. It was only when I reminded her that we had talked about buying a boat and were in a rare phase in our lives when we could actually afford one that she finally looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and said “Hey, let’s go to the boat show.”
We got to the arena and as we walked in our age-old problem reared its ugly head. I looked to the right and sighed, “Ahhh, fishing boats…” at the exact same moment my wife looked to the left and sighed, “Ahhh, ski boats.” You see, I went and committed an act that all of my fishing buddies condemn me for. I married myself a water skier. If you’re a hardcore fisherman like me, water skiers are the scourge of your life. You know the scene: You’re fishing a gorgeous weed bed or line of boat docks and some clown skis by you as close as they can get with a big, loopy grin on their face. I married one of them.
I spent hours shifting from one foot to the other as my wife looked at every ski boat in the joint and talked about inboards versus I/O’s and wakes and tow capacity and… blah, blah, blah. She rolled her eyes as I lovingly ran my hand down the metal flake gunwales of every bass boat in the arena. We both wanted a boat but had come to an impossible standoff. She wanted one of the monstrous, bloated ski boats and I wanted one of the sleek, beautiful bass boats. There was a short “debate” about which boat we would buy that ended when security asked if there was a problem and told us we were scaring children and the elderly. At this point I decided enough was enough and led my wife by the arm to a deserted place by the bathrooms.
“Listen, woman!” I exclaimed. “I am the man of our house and as much as I hate to do this I am putting my foot down!” I had to show her that I not only wore the pants in this family, but I had a good, sturdy belt and some suspenders on them. I went on, “We are going to march over there and we are going to buy a boat that I can fish from!” She quietly nodded and followed me over to the salesman.
As we drove home I marveled at how well things had gone. We got a good deal and the financing only doubled the initial cost of the boat. My truck easily pulled the trailer and I grinned as I watched the boat bounce around behind us. Everything had turned out well and I had shown my wife who was boss.
Now I just have to figure out how to cast from the swim platform and hope that my tackle box fits somewhere in between all of the skis and life jackets.
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