Fishing 101

I've come into the office at the ungodly hour of 9:11 today, and to celebrate being only 26 minutes late for work today, I shall update you on my exciting Deepavali weekend break.

On Sunday, in preparation for the Great Maldives Trip that I am to take with The Boy, he decided to bring me out to test which rod I would be able to use. The Boy's Only Friend in the World is also going on this trip, as is the Only Friend's girlfriend and his father. The other female victim had already been taken out on such a rite of passage on Saturday, and been brought to buy stupendously expensive fishing gloves, so Sunday was my turn.

The Boy woke up at the almost unheard of hour of 10am in an attempt to drag me out of bed to go to the Only Friend's house. In an attempt to delay the inevitable, I tried to distract him with the very exciting new bikini and lace-up heels which I bought on Saturday. It worked for a little while, then I was chivvied out of the house and into the car. Such the mysterious allure of fishing that even a gorgeous girl in lace-up high heels can't sway him. Fish are sexier than I am.

So we zip off to the Only Friend's house to pick up the gear, the guys chattering excitedly while I play with the cat. Then we get stuck because the guys are suddenly torn between the desire to try out their new rods and the desire to eat obscene amounts of food. In the end, I persuade them to try the rods first because it’s going to piss down. Both men are very impressed with the logic of that and agree.

CASTING 101

Embarrassingly, we stand on the beach at Pasir Ris and try out the fancy new rods. I quickly learn that those things, although they don’t look like much, weigh approximately a ton and a half after the first few casts. I also learn that I can't cast to save my life.

A fishing rod makes a rather exciting sound when it's cast out, a sort of zippy little zzzzzzz! noise. So the guys cast and it goes zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! and the popper (more on that later) lands about 50 feet off the shore. The Boy, hypnotized by the sound, ignores me completely to try out his new rod. Since he's wearing a thoroughly ridiculous hat (I don't care if it's by Nike) I'm happy enough not to be associated with him and gratefully allow the Only Friend to teach me the basics. It's apparently very simple. He graciously gives up his rod to let me try.

"It can't be that hard," I think, watching the popper on the end of The Boy's line spin out then plop into the water.

His rod goes "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!"

Mine went "z! plop."

Pause.

The Only Friend : "That's......very good!"

I think mine got all of about 2 metres away from where I'm standing.

Then it starts to rain.

Twenty minutes in, my arm has gone dead from the shoulder downwards, my popper has gone not more than fifteen feet away, and I'm wet. My loving boyfriend manages to drag himself away from the excitement of not catching anything and trots up to me, beaming from under the stupid hat. I try and shield myself from the bullet-sized raindrops which thwack me on the forehead.

"You bring me to all the nicest places," I tell him grumpily.

He smiles beatifically at me. "I know."

He eventually takes pity on me and tries to teach me the rudiments of casting poppers. Apparently you have to kind of jerk your hips. "Like golf!" I made the cardinal mistake of saying. In return, I got a DEEPLY contemptuous look and a frigid, "It's NOT like golf at all."

To distract him, I ask him where I'm supposed to be casting. He points to a spot that's roughly halfway to the moon. Great, just great.

USE THE THE GEAR THAT LOOKS SURPRISED

A note on poppers: They are these hard plastic floating things which are shaped a bit like fish if you squint and more like milk bottles if you don't. You attach them to the end of the fishing line and they kind of skim with half their bodies under the surface of the sea, sending up this spray and apparently mimicking the behavior of prey fish. (Fish aren't very smart.) They come in all colors of the rainbow, various sizes, different hook placements, and different cup depths. It's all not important. What I do like about them is that they often come with these stuck-on silver eyes which give them a terribly surprised look, like they're stunned that they're there. If they could make it sound I suspect it would be like, "Durrrgh?" The ones we'll be using in the Maldives are approximately 8" long. I nearly brained myself with one of them when the wind blew the one hanging from my rod at me. Thank god it didn't have hooks on it.

THE BEST PLACES TO GO

A further note on the Maldives: it was apparently in a state of emergency when I last heard about it. The Boy is worryingly evasive about giving me updates on this. In fact, the first time I heard about it was when someone asked him, "So, is the Maldives still in a state of emergency?".

I glared at him. "WHAT state of emergency?"

He shrugged on a totally unconvincing attempt at nonchalance. "Oh...it's nothing… just some little uprising they had..."

MY, WHAT BIG HANDS YOU HAVE

After the great casting adventure (where I manage to hit myself on the head with the popper again, and hit The Only Friend on the thigh while he was making his escape from my haphazard casting attempts), we have lunch, then I am dragged to buy ridiculously expensive gloves. Apparently, if you don't wear gloves, your hands end up lacerated, blistered lumps of meat. A holiday is not a holiday if you don't have to purchase special protective gear.

The other female victim has tiny hands, and even the size XS gloves didn't fit her. My loving boyfriend inspects my hands and says loud enough for Tampines to hear, "Wow, babe, you've got HUGE hands!" Both men crowd around me to inspect my giant mitts.

After some deliberation, they ask for a pair of size S gloves for me to try. The store owner says they've run out so could I try an M instead? I try one side, and it fits my left hand, so I call it good, but Justin insists I try the right one too.

"Your right hand will be bigger than the left, " he insists.

I give him a look. "Sweetie, I'm a girl, there's no reason for my right hand to be bigger."

But I humor him and put both on, feeling a bit like a Dry-Tech endorsed clown. They fit perfectly. This fact causes both men to go into apoplexies of how amazingly huge my hands are. They really know how to make a girl feel sexy.

It's going to be a long trip.

The Slinky Cat gets her groove on to 'Turn Me On' and dances around her cubicle