Cross-posted from Too Much Info
I was reminded of an amusing incident that happened to me quite a few years ago now. Back when I was a younger teenager, I had been a Boy Scout. The "Scout" half of this membership means my Troop went on lots of camping trips and had plenty of opportunities to interact with nature in a colorful variety of ways. (We once tried to make a toad and a snake battle each other like Pokémon, but that's a different story.) And, of course, the "Boy" half of this membership entails that I, being male, was naturally prone to doing lots of reckless (read: awesome) things and being an overall jackass. (We had roman-candle-trashcan-lid duels on more than one occasion, but again, different story.)
On one such camping trip, we'd brought along some of the Troop canoes for an afternoon expedition on a local creek. After paddling along for several hours, stopping several times along the way to carry the canoes over shallow waters, we found a small inlet where the water was about four feet deep or so that made for a perfect "swimming hole." Since we were all pretty much soaked already, we beached the canoes and swam around for a while. (Horsing around in murky, bacteria-ridden water? Hot damn, where do I sign up?!)
Near the edge of the shore, next to a small copse of cattails, we noticed the floating remains of a fairly large catfish, probably three feet long. Now, kids, when you find a dead animal, what's the natural response to said discovery? That's right! You poke it with sticks and desecrate its body! Anyway, we had a few jollies chucking rocks at this hapless decedent for a while until my friend Collin had the brilliant idea to find the biggest rock possible and just blast the sucker. So he fishes around on the bottom of the creek until he hoists up a boulder about the size of a football that must've weighed about thirty or forty pounds. He lifts the quarry overhead and heaves it at this catfish corpse, scoring a direct hit which immediately bent the fish in half and sank it to the bottom with a massive splash like a depth charge going off. Suffice to say, it was pretty bitchin'.
As cool as it was, though, my Spidey-sense told me this would only end in tears, so I took a few steps backward toward the shoreline. Collin's brother, Adam, however, was still in the water, about seven feet away from the site of the shipwreck. It'd been about two minutes, and we were watching small bubbles rise to the surface, wondering when the fish would bob back to the top.
Without warning, Adam starts freaking out and flailing around in the water like he was possessed. "Huuuuaaaghghghghggghhh! Gahhhhhh!" A few frantic seconds later, the fish casually breaks the surface, only with a massive gash in its side and two-foot-long white intestines like thick silly string hanging out of the wound. Apparently, not only had the fish broken free of the rock and bobbed right under his crotch, but its now-free guts had somehow entangled completely around his leg. Of course, while he was still clawing at his leg and twitching like Michael J. Fox, we were rolling around choking with laughter.
After that incident, we preferred to let dead animals lie. :)
On one such camping trip, we'd brought along some of the Troop canoes for an afternoon expedition on a local creek. After paddling along for several hours, stopping several times along the way to carry the canoes over shallow waters, we found a small inlet where the water was about four feet deep or so that made for a perfect "swimming hole." Since we were all pretty much soaked already, we beached the canoes and swam around for a while. (Horsing around in murky, bacteria-ridden water? Hot damn, where do I sign up?!)
Near the edge of the shore, next to a small copse of cattails, we noticed the floating remains of a fairly large catfish, probably three feet long. Now, kids, when you find a dead animal, what's the natural response to said discovery? That's right! You poke it with sticks and desecrate its body! Anyway, we had a few jollies chucking rocks at this hapless decedent for a while until my friend Collin had the brilliant idea to find the biggest rock possible and just blast the sucker. So he fishes around on the bottom of the creek until he hoists up a boulder about the size of a football that must've weighed about thirty or forty pounds. He lifts the quarry overhead and heaves it at this catfish corpse, scoring a direct hit which immediately bent the fish in half and sank it to the bottom with a massive splash like a depth charge going off. Suffice to say, it was pretty bitchin'.
As cool as it was, though, my Spidey-sense told me this would only end in tears, so I took a few steps backward toward the shoreline. Collin's brother, Adam, however, was still in the water, about seven feet away from the site of the shipwreck. It'd been about two minutes, and we were watching small bubbles rise to the surface, wondering when the fish would bob back to the top.
Without warning, Adam starts freaking out and flailing around in the water like he was possessed. "Huuuuaaaghghghghggghhh! Gahhhhhh!" A few frantic seconds later, the fish casually breaks the surface, only with a massive gash in its side and two-foot-long white intestines like thick silly string hanging out of the wound. Apparently, not only had the fish broken free of the rock and bobbed right under his crotch, but its now-free guts had somehow entangled completely around his leg. Of course, while he was still clawing at his leg and twitching like Michael J. Fox, we were rolling around choking with laughter.
After that incident, we preferred to let dead animals lie. :)