Customer: "Hey, Outfoxed. How about running down to this job we have and installing 12 exterior columns. Mind you, there's no power on the job, it's snowing, the superintendant is a homicidal dwarf with no teeth and his wife is in charge of paying you. Shouldn't take you but a couple of hours, right?"

It will take even less time than you think, customer boy. Because we'll be ensconsed at the Watering Hole with our aching feet on a bar rail, just dreaming about your job and laughing like Hekyl and Jekyl.

But comes a time when even the most distasteful project must be faced head on, and performed with aplomb.

Such a day is coming soon. The day when we pull the corporate boat. From its' roost at the not-so-corporate lake.

The F250 is empty, the winter lodging has been prepared. And now, to go with sadness, trudge the tundra upon which we spend so many happy spring days, and retrieve our beloved for the annual wash down. It's just a little boat, all of 10 feet long, but it has built in seats, livewell, fish finder electronics, etc. We lavish care upon it as if it were a child, and usually around January, we begin to feel guilty for leaving it out in the cold.

So we bring her ashore. Tenderly, we wash the mold from about the gunwales, the dirt from the floorboards, we shine the seats and dry the livewell.

Typically, we do this on an unseasonable day when the temperatures start to head north of 60 degrees, and the accompaning coolers are stocked with cold libations to fool us into thinking that spring is just around the corner. Often times there is a corporate board meeting on the spot to discuss the just arrived package from BASS Pro Shops, debate the current state of monofilament inventory, or assemble an investigory team to ferret out the most lucrative deal on spring minnows.

When King David gave the Psalm about "Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me", I just know he was talking about a baitcasting reel on a 7 foot graphite composite. What the staff part was all about, I have no idea. Unless he ran a flatbottomed boat for bonefish in the Keys.

Stu's worm farm is in good shape under ultraviolet lights in the shop. The cricket market is soft this year. We just bought a gross of hooks. The trolling motor batteries are charged and the motor has been tested. Don't want to be caught unawares.

And in just under 90 days, I'm going to pull a 12 pound largemouth out of the water and wonder what the office bound lads are doing these days.

Heh, I'll let you know the day it happens. Trust me.

previous - next 0 comments so far