A FISH STORY

One time my brother and I went deep sea fishing with my dad in Jacksonville, Fl. About an hour after we went out my dad hooked a giant fish called an amberjack. It was so big that the captain of the boat made everybody else pull their hooks in so daddy could reel it in. It took him over an hour of wrestling with that fish to get it on the boat.

I was 13 years old. That fish was over 3 foot long and when I would tell people about it, I would tell people that it was THIIIIS BIG, and extend both my arms to their full length. Which was the truth.

What I didn't understand until I was older is that my dad LOVED to tell the story about the big one he reeled in and he would always have me, at the appropriate time, tell his friends exactly how big that fish was. Even as an adult I would still tell people that the fish was THIIIIS BIG and extend my arms. It didn't matter that I had doubled in size since the big fishing trip. I still used the same action to describe that fish, which of course made the fish look bigger and bigger. Therefore my dad could talk about the fish and use me to demonstrate how big that sucker was and still not be lying.

I did not figure this out until recently.

Here is a juicy little tidbit about that day. My brother and I were both excruciatingly seasick. I managed not to throw up though. Billy on the other hand puked over the side of the boat all day. That night when we went home he must have eaten some pickled tomatoes because I went into the bathroom in the middle of the night and there was a half of a pickled tomato on the toilet seat that he had thrown up. It was a sight that I will never forget!

I wonder if that was the time I locked the keys in the trunk of the car. Daddy had to unlock the car with a coat hanger and take out the back seat of the car and crawl into the trunk to get the keys.