Monday, January 29, 2007

NaNoLuMo And Going Head Over Heels For A Fish

I decided to dub February National No Lurking Month.

I know, I know, they had a week of it in January...

So what?

I needed to get rid of that big fat guy in my upper left hand corner and this was the photo that would do just that.

The ANTI-LURKER!!

So LURKERS beware. February will be hard on you. At least in your own conscience. These eyes will haunt you until you relent and leave a comment.

(Stare at these eyes for six minutes and you will be overcome with an irrepressable desire to pupate. I swear... )

Let me preface this next little story with the statement that I am a very coordinated, smart, clever, and practical guy. I can change my own clutch and design my own home. I am amazing and together and admirable and over the weekend, I fell head first into my almost empty fish pond; but before I did, I made sure I poked a hole in the vinyl liner with a six foot metal breaking bar that had been sharpened on a grinder not long ago by yours truly.

This is a confessional of sorts. So you can't laugh.

The scenario-- There were six inches of ice on my pond. My fish had not eaten in over a week. There was no way to get food to them without using the breaking bar and breaking through to them. Saturday afternoon, the temperature had climbed into the low forties and the sun was out-- a perfect moment to break into my pond and feed my fish.

What happened-- I struck at the ice with the six foot breaker bar. I made a dent. I struck at it again in the same spot. I made a bigger dent- more like a divot. A third time, and I had a small crater. The fourth strike... SHIT! went through entirely way too easily and the bar shot to the bottom of the pond and - no doubt- put a hole in it. "That was dumb!" is what I thought. All I had going for me was the hope that the bottom was squishy enough to absorb the steely pointy bar...

Sunday arrived and the pond was mostly empty. Shit! The six inch layer of ice was now bridging space where the surface once was, and "the pond" was way down in the hole, where little fishies were looking up at me as if to say - "You DO know about this little problem we are having here, don't you?"

I struck at the remaining ice to get at the pond. It all broke up in big chunks and fell into the water and crushed down heavily on the little fish who were now looking at me through six inches of refraction...

SHIT!

I was crushing my fish with ice. I had one choice. To lay on my belly and lean in and start pulling ice out of the pound. I can do this! I am doing this! SHIT!

My left hand slipped off the rock that was holding most of my weight, and now I was falling head first into my pond. My right hand plunged into the icy water and struck the soft vinyl bottom just before my head submerged. This one arm caught all of my weight and THERE I WAS, perhaps a foot of legs and feet sticking out from the top of the pond, the rest of me upside down in a hole I dug last summer, thinking- "deeper is better, I'll dig it really deep".

SHIT! Things could have been better for me and my fishies!

Like I was saying, I am really smart and coordinated and clever and practical. Don't believe me? Just ask me...

NOTE- No fish were harmed during the making of this debacle...

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24 comments:

slaghammer said...

Is that the anti-lurker’s butt or his head? The obvious answer would be the head, but I’ve been fooled by ridiculously large reproductive organs before. A good example would be those monkeys with the scary red asses. If you look at one of those things close up you would never guess it was attached to a monkey. While not technically a reproductive organ, large red monkey butts are in fact integral to the mating process. I have an uncle who cannot mate unless he sees a large red ass, which makes my point for me, the point being…I wanted to post a comment with the term “reproductive organ” in it and yours was the first blog I visited this evening.

Capricorn Cringe said...

I feel sorry for the fish. They don't get to pick their human benefactors. Poor finny fishies.

Nikky said...

I gotta know how this turned out! Were you able to save the fish?

BTW, the banner is wonderful, and I want to put it up now... help?

kario said...

I won't share my story from my fish pond quite yet - it seems that they are magnets for disastrous human encounters. Hope you were able to save the fishies and yourself. Next time, set up a camera on a tripod so we can get a photo of the bottom half of you protruding from your pond...

Stucco said...

This wasn't one of those "I'm drunk and naked- I need to check on the fish" moments, was it? Are you now a member of the Polar Bear Club?

whimsical brainpan said...

Are the fish ok? Did you fix the pond? Being the smart and coordinated guy that you are I'm hoping that the situation has been remedied (and that you didn't catch a cold).

Scott from Oregon said...

The rest of the story is as follows-- I managed to get myself backed out of the hole and erect with only one scrape on my left arm that Mum had to point out was bleeding because I stopped noticing those htings a long time ago. I captured all the fish and put them in a bucket of water. I pumped out the remaining water witha sump pump then vaccuumed out the pond to make it sparkly clean. I patched the hole (time will tell if it holds) dragged the hose into the house and put it in the bathtub to run hot water over it (it had froze again) and then filled the pond halfway up and returned the fish.

So far, so good...

Stucco, I will never join that club. Not after seeing what cold water does to my peepee...

Nikky said...

"my peepee" ??
How old are you, honestly!??

Youre a riot Scott, thanks!

Anonymous said...

Poor fishes. Hope they are doing ok in the blizzard like conditions. It was a funny picture you painted in my head though.

How's the diet?

Scott from Oregon said...

Flat coke-- 7lbs.

Not good. Not bad. February is another month...

Jeannie said...

Those poor fish! I hope they survive the freeze thaw cycle

Rinda Elliott said...

Scott! This is the first time I've clicked your name off my blog and it went somewhere! Which is seriously weird since it looks like you've been on this blog awhile.

That's an interesting photo to the left there. And I'll be back for Sunday captioning. :)

Bernita said...

My. God.
There are fish stories and then there are fish stories.

Anonymous said...

Good for you...Only 3 here but I've got about 6-8 more lbs to go. Ugh! I just want a Mello Yellow & an Oreo!!!

Barb said...

I wanted to thank you for visiting my blog and to let you know your comment is in a post :)

Lynnea said...

I love knowing that I'm not the only one in the world with a penchant for water accidents!

I'm glad your fishies survived, and you too for that matter.

Anonymous said...

do you like to suck cock? i bet you do!! little boy cock, probably. you can deny it all you want, but deep down you know you like the cock. Go ahead and respond with quippy comebacks and ardent defences. I don't care, because i know i'm right.

Stucco said...

That's a new thing. Penis Envy, your straight jacket is ready...

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the laugh, Scott. You just managed to prove that all of us can, and most likly will, do something really dumb. I'm glad that you and the fishies are okay.

Judging from the ugly post at 11:13am I'd have to conclude that one of the loonies from ITM has paid a visit. Idiots!

CS said...

Too bad you didn't have someone videotaping all that! And, I lovee the fly eyes

Anonymous said...

so i see something DID happen to you...almost drowned in a puddle o frozen fishes....

are these lil fishes gold fish? cuz...if so...did you know that they can freeze and still survive? (true story)
you probably didnt really need to worry about feeding them...could have saved you alot of ... umm problems...however, the story would have been much shorter and definitely less hilarious!!

Scott from Oregon said...

Yes, anon-- I should have left them alone. The fish were fine without my intervention. In my worry, I made things much worse...

Oh and Maggie, I just realized why Xpa Ha sound so familiar... Were the turtles active while you were there?

Lynnea said...

I remember an area they had for turtles and there were many of them in there. Very cute. Is that what you refer to? They also had an area for crocodiles, there were baby ones in the pen and they were adorable, though they don't stay that way.

Now you have to tell why you associate turtles with Xpu Ha.

Cheesy said...

Oh Scott! Faboo tale lol...>>> commenting so I don't have bug~eyed dreams!

I gave up on ponds a long time ago....
Fish 0
Racoons 7