One loose definition of “insanity” is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Well, remove the vacancy sign, innkeeper. I’ve arrived for a long-term stay at the Crazy Cat Motel.
A few months back, I was fishing from the dock with two rods. I’d coil a multi-impaled night crawler around the hook, cast it out and place the rod by my foot while I performed the same surgery with another setup. One fine night while baiting rod #2, a sneaky catfish chomped onto the resting bait and bolted for parts unknown.
It snatched the line with such conviction that my rod and reel vanished from the dock before I could react. Then again, my Little League coach would remind me that my reaction time could be timed with a sundial. Either way, I never saw the tackle again, and one free-but-encumbered fish is dragging around my rod and reel by his lip.
Last month, I was seized with a new plan: load up the hook with bacon, worm and whatever else would satisfy a channel cat. Then slip the last couple feet of the pole through the opening in the center of the cleat, the metal anvil-shaped contraption that boats tie up to when boats are actually operative.
Then I left the rod there overnight with every intention of hauling up a monster in the morning. But in the morning, there was no fish. Or line or hook or rod and reel.
I left the fishing gear unattended with rancid results. And yet I do almost the same thing a few weeks later expecting glorious results and lose a perfectly excellent Zebco combo. I’m losing it, man!
Then this just happened:
It’s 7:30 Sunday morn, and I’ve cris-crossed half the lake scouring for not one, not two, but three inflatable water vessels that were whisked from our shore during last night’s micro-burst.
I’ve returned from my failed search-and-recovery mission without the big yellow 3-person towable, anti-gravity tube or the blue and white raft or the sturdy orange raft that supported my heft even during the height of beer-drinking season.
After my imaginary study concluded that going to the movies lowers blood pressure, the missus and I headed out to the local theater last night. Chance of any rain was 15 percent.
I should have learned by now that, in my world, 15 percent is really 100 percent. I recently washed and waxed the car, so the gods of vile precipitation were already watching and waiting.
After watching three hours of soothing “Mission Impossible” action, we returned to a home and town with no power. Evidently, during our quite loud movie, a nasty thunderstorm had assaulted our region.
Daughter Emerita, who was staying with the Millers next door during our date night, described watching a burst of wind lift the heavy 3-person tube and send it and the other inflatables whipping out of the cove into the big water.
Since I had purchased the cheapest kayak without the optional headlights, I chose to wait until this morning to search for our water toys. Now it looks like these, too, are long gone.
And here’s the part that convinces me I’ve joined the Legions of Loon.
Remember that theory about repeating your actions and expecting different results? This same thing happened three weeks ago.
The weather forecast that night was something along the lines of: Chance of rain is either 2 or 97 percent with possible gentle breezes or fortress busting winds. You choose.
Always the optimists, we chose the simpler (lazier) preparation plans which call for no preparation. We simply left a couple inflatable unsecured next to the kayak and on the docks.
Shore ‘nuff, come 4am the gales were slashing everything in the county. I headed out to look over the damage. The big tube thingy was there, but not the inflatable rafts. Also, something was amiss on the dock.
Oh, maybe it was that our 54x26x24” heavy-duty vinyl storage box – and all its contents – was gone. So was the wood railing whose only purpose in life was to prevent a 54x26x24” heavy-duty vinyl storage box from tumbling into a lake before floating off and sinking in 9 feet of water.
One wouldn’t expect someone to have a sentimental attachment to a vinyl utility box and its contents, but this was a completely unexpected, greatly appreciated birthday gift from my cousin Linda. Also, among the contents was my tackle box and all the lures that have failed me since childhood.
As I stood on the dock at 6am streaming curses into run-on sentences, I spotted something floating about a quarter-mile away. I grabbed rope, tossed it into the kayak and shoved off. Being in superb shape, I reached the object in the same day. However, the bobbing item was not my box but a neighbor’s teal wooden Adirondack lounge chair. I tied the half-submerged furniture to the stern of the kayak and paddled like I was the third goose on the ramp to the ark … and it was starting to rain.
And after five minutes of furious paddling, I was still in the same spot. So, I stabbed the water on both sides with additional vigor that comes from stored-up Folgers in my cells. It took but 17 minutes to make it to Russ’ shore a couple football fields away. He was so appreciative for the return of his chair that he scrambled onto his paddleboard and patrolled the lagoon for the swept-away box.
“Found it!” he shouted. He strapped on a Navy SEALS-caliber mask and dived to the floor where he recovered the tipped box and a debris field of three swim masks and a snorkel … but no fish net or tackle box.
We kicked toward shore, tipped the water from inside and dragged the box up to the grass. A couple days later, I moved the box to a different spot on the dock and weighed it down with bricks.
Somehow after all this, I still assumed that blustery conditions wouldn’t dare return and sweep more of our stuff into lake. Then last night happened.
If we ever find the rafts and that glide bomb of a water sports towable, I’m lashing them to trees with tugboat-grade rope.
I still hold out hope for someday locating my submerged tackle box. That will enable me to continue to fish. You know, casting over and over and over expecting different results.
Welcome to the Crazy Cat Motel. Enjoy your stay.
