This is the second part to a short story about the occasionally awkward business of Christian dating and the tale of two dogs and a fishing lesson. It's told from my real life.
If you missed Part 1, catch it here.
If you are returning, I had left off in the middle of a fishing lesson that was not going so well. Enjoy the conclusion. :)
Ryan showed me the cast one more time. He explained slowly and thoroughly.
I listened intently as if my fate depended on it. I practiced the motion. I pep-talked myself.
You can do this, Amanda. Focus. Think about where you want it to go and send it there. You can do this.
I really liked Ryan, and I thought Ryan wanted a girl who could fish.
I wanted to be that girl.
At the very least, I didn’t want to be the klutz sending the poor guy up the tree for misfired hooks every five minutes.
I gave it my best effort. I pulled back and swished forward, letting go of the reel at the right moment. I watched that hook go straight out in front of me headed for shallow water. It wasn’t far enough, but it looked like progress. Before I could celebrate my decent form, one dog went bounding into the water.
And then I felt a pull on my line.
The dog yelped. My eyes got wide. “Ryan! The dog is pulling on my line. I think I got the dog!”
“You… What?!”
“What… what… what do I do?!” I stuttered as I forced words to form on my lips.
“I don’t know. Don’t reel it in! I got to find where the hook is.” Ryan’s words were agitated and worried.
The dog swam in circles before coming back to shore. Then she ran around the clearing like a squealing pig in a pin being chased by kids at the county fair. Before we could catch her, she bounded back into the river and swam into deep water, whimpering the whole way.
We called for the dog. We reasoned with her. We begged her. Finally the dog swam back. We were intent on figuring out where the hook was.
We searched for the line… followed it with our eyes… till we saw where the line ended.
It seemed to be coming from…
{I am not quite sure how to put this…}
The dog’s anus.
Ryan’s eyes got so wide they seemed to bulge out of his head. “Amanda!” He paused. “You hooked the dog in her…” His loud voice turned to a whisper, “butthole?!” A look of horror washed over his face as he uttered that last ungodly word. I might as well have been showing up to church in black leather bondage clothes with thigh high boots, black lipstick and a whip with the way he looked at me.
He took a deep breath. “Amanda. Those are really nice dogs. What if the dog is seriously injured, and we get sued or something? I can’t believe this is happening.”
I tried to speak. Nothing came.
“Okay, well, we got to get this dog pinned down so we can remove the hook. I’ll take her at the front, you come at her in the opposite direction so she can’t get away.”
I agreed. A minute later we had the dog pinned. The fishing line had wrapped around her back leg and her tail. We couldn’t see a hook. (Hallelujah!) As Ryan worked at removing the line from the dog, I followed that thick clear thread to see if I could find the hook.
It was under a root in the shallows of the river. Thankfully, no where near the dog’s behind.
I am not sure how to properly salvage a date that’s been interrupted by a dog being potentially hooked in its arse. I thought maybe it could be one of those cute stories you tell your grandkids around the Thanksgiving table. (“
Let me tell you sonny. I fell in love with your grandmother that day… the way she couldn’t fish to save her life and almost hooked an expensive dog in the rumpus… I just knew she was the girl for me.”
Yeah. Not so much.)
Ryan just looked at me like I had committed some kind of grievous sin.
Thou shalt not improperly cast and thou shalt not hook or appear to hook a dog. Thou shalt get major negative points for hooking a dog’s anus.
I told a few awkward jokes in an attempt to lighten the situation. He was ready to go home. He said his parents were expecting him.
It was 2 pm on a Saturday.
We walked that dirt path atop the levee back to my house. There was an awkward silence that hung in the air, and the smell of sulfur seemed especially noticeable. The dogs were at our heels, black coats gleaming in the sunshine. They seemed to be bounding about chasing butterflies, not a care in the world, almost mocking me as I was so full of caring about what Ryan thought of me now.
When Ryan left that day, I think I knew our Bible studies were over.
I ran into him a few months later on the college campus. After some how-are-you, how-are-your-classes small talk, I asked how him and God were doing. “Great. I am engaged to be married now and I just know she’s the girl God has for me.”
I wanted to ask if she fished.
:)
