Fishin' with Dad

"Isn't this great!" my father exclaims "Ya" is the best I can do. I contemplate the fun my friends must be having back on campus while I am trapped in this box overnight trying to bond with my father. As he reaches for the minnow bucket I lean back and am successful in avoiding physical contact this particular time. I am not as lucky with the coffee breath. "I just love getting away from things," he adds. I can't help but mumble under my breath "depends on what you're trying to get away from."

"I built the interior from free decorating samples; top of the line stuff"; knowing that he went overboard he jests: "I bet you don't see too many fish houses this fancy inside." I offer my usual submission "nope, bet you don't" but I feel tricked into praising this long overdue substitute for a vacation. After a short pause I am compelled to recant: "it's still a bit crowded though." I wait for a response but none comes. I add "it's smaller than my dorm room" as if my first comment didn't provide enough detail to convey my point. I give him another opportunity but he says nothing. Still looking for some reaction I continue to brandish my knowledge of small confined spaces: "it's even smaller than a cell at the new county jail." A response is finally mine but being of the wrong type it is very unsatisfying. I vehemently deny having any first hand knowledge of the aforementioned jail cell but I doubt he is convinced.

That night crammed into a substandard bunk two feet from the ceiling I have difficulty sleeping. The cracking ice sounds as if it travels on forever across the large frozen lake. However, after subduing fears of the house falling through a crack I am finally able to drift off.

Suddenly I hear a smoke alarm, "FIRE!" I yell, whacking my head hard on the ceiling. Laughing heartily my father explains "There's no fire, you have a fish on." obligated to my father, I struggle out of my warm sleeping bag and begin reeling in the fish.

My father prods once again with: "My buzzers work a lot better for waking you up than those old turning coffee cans filled with rocks…don't you think?" Betraying my feelings once again I offer another "Ya" as the translucent hole in the floor introduces the ugliest fish I have ever seen. My father laughs even harder while I stand in my underwear shivering from the reduced temperature of the icehouse watching the eelpout wrap itself around my line.

As I lay in my bunk waiting for my adrenaline to wear off I am convinced that I hold conclusive and irrefutable evidence of how horrible ice fishing is.

But now I wonder. I generation later I can't help but be curious. Will my children…perhaps; someday; like to go fishin' with Dad?