Taking a walk on the wild side over the weekend
THOSE WHO KNOW ME would probably describe me as a wild man. The kind of person who changes course recklessly and goes off on a dangerous tangent at the drop of a hat, just to see people react and pay attention so he can feel something – basically, anything – stir inside his cold and lifeless soul.
Oh wait, that’s my description of Trump.
I’m actually the kind who just enjoys getting a little crazy on the weekends. This weekend, however, I took that to a new level.
My weekend went into overdrive immediately with me tying, not one, but two dozen flies on Saturday morning.
Most folks are already well aware of the reputation we fly tyers have as thrill seekers, but let me just say, this was nuts. I started off by tying a dozen pheasant tail nymphs in the classic style and then tied the second dozen with hot orange thoraxes!
Even Jenn recognized that I was walking the knife’s edge.
When I showed her what
I had done, she looked up from her book momentarily and said, “You are a wild man.”
But I wasn’t through shaking things up yet.
You see, normally, Jenn and I follow a very strict but exciting routine on Saturdays. We go to the dump in the early afternoon and go grocery shopping afterwards.
Exciting as that is, I thought, “Why not really rock her world? Why not add a whole new level of excitement to the weekend?”
So, in a fit of mad spontaneity, I proclaimed, “You know what? Let’s forget going to the dump today. We’ll go tomorrow!”
I’ve never blown anyone’s mind before, so I’m not 100 per cent certain that rolling your eyeballs is an indicator that this is happening. But since Jenn did that right after my suggestion, I’m guessing that’s probably the case.
Shortly thereafter, we went to the grocery store as always and then – get this – completely avoided the landfill. The excitement was palpable. Even now, I get the chills thinking about it.
On the drive home, I said, “I guess, no one can ever call us boring, huh?”
Again, her response probably indicated that I had just blown her mind.
So much for Saturday; Sunday was even more exciting. I tied two dozen gold-ribbed hare’s ear nymphs, possibly the most classic nymph fly pattern going.
In case you’re not keeping track, that’s the second two-four of the weekend.
When I showed them to Jenn, she tried to be cool but, believe me, her “how about that?” betrayed her excitement.
We’re talking four dozen flies in a weekend! And then we gathered our recyclables and garbage and went on a dump run. On Sunday!
On the way there, I thought, “OK, let’s live even more dangerously.”
So, as we got to the landfill gatehouse, I flashed my landfill card rather than held it still for the attendant to read.
That stunt got us through the front gate and further excitement was in the air as we noticed not one of the people we normally see at our routine Saturday dump run time was there. Better yet, the contents of the bins seemed a little more exciting. I’ve never seen so much corrugated cardboard on a Saturday.
Soon after, we drove home again, each of us showing our exhilaration in our own way: me by singing “A Whole New World!” from Disney’s 1992 classic Aladdin; Jenn by rolling her eyeballs.