I don’t like to go fishing. I respect those that do and am sure that I am missing out on a ton of fun. I am saying this so none of my love-to-fish friends mail me a catfish in a padded envelope.
Several years ago, some of our kids were invited to a special party at the local fishing pond. They couldn’t drive yet, so guess who had to go? 
I thought I could set up a seat at the water’s edge, get out a book and a cold drink, and enjoy the late summer afternoon while all the children flung hook and bobber into the murky depths. That didn’t sound so bad.
I settled into a comfy lawn chair and had read a couple of chapters when I heard my daughter shout. She stood on the dock, pole held high in the air, fish squirming at the end of the line.
Great. She’d caught a fish. Notice: no exclamation mark in these comments.
She wanted me to bring the tackle box. I jammed the bookmark in place and marched through the thick grass to the dock.
“Look at my fish! We gotta get the hook out before it gets hurt.”
What could get hurt? The fish? The hook? My reading time?
I set the tackle box on the rough wood of the dock and gazed into the tangle of hooks, bobbers, weights. How did one get a hook out of a fish?
She sensed my confusion. Or just got impatient. I’m never sure which. “Grab those pliers, Mom.”
OK, I knew pliers. I lifted the metal tool and held it out to her.
“I can’t do that,” she said with a voice that sounded like the whine of a jet engine starting up.
Like I could? “I don’t fish,” I said. Clearly, a boundary was in order here.
“I’ll hold the fish, and you get the hook out,” she said, gripping the squirmy fish in her nine-year-old hands.
Um, I don’t get hooks out. I stared at the fish, which gaped back. This was no time for a “who blinks first” contest. Do fish blink?
I drew a deep breath. Parenting involves more courage than you’d think. Extricating a hook from a fish’s mouth ranks pretty high on my “don’t want to do this” list, but it had to be done. I stepped closer.
My daughter squeezed the fish’s mouth open, and I raised the pliers, trying to find the right grip. Stalling.
And I got hit in the face with a blast of green pond water.
I looked up to see my five-year-old son standing a few feet away from me, holding a stained and wrinkled paper cup.
He gazed at the fish while I glared at him.
Then he saw me staring, and he shifted his weight. “I grabbed the cup from the edge of the pond,” he said. “And I scooped up some water.”
Why?
“I didn’t want the fish to die before you got the hook out, and I thought it might take a while,” he said.
“So, you scooped up the water and threw it in my face?”
He shrugged and tossed the cup down. “I missed.”
I still don’t like fishing. Don’t mail me catfish.
