Safe Fishing

On my voyage south on my sailboat, trying to escape the encroaching cold weather, I stopped in the vicinity of my brother’s neighborhood, where I rentied a slip for a few days to visit family and enable them to see my boat. And to replace the recently stolen dinghy, but that’s another story. My brother stayed aboard for a couple of nights to see what it was like to sleep on a boat. One evening, he wanted to fish off the back of the boat. I gave him what gear I had. Since I normally troll a line while sailing, I didn’t have the necessary equipment for stationary fishing. Sitting at the back of the boat with a line hanging over, my brother was not happy with the result. After a while, he asked me “Do you have any condoms?” I stared at him, my mind trying to wrap around the reason why my brother was asking such a personal question. Finally, I answered, “Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do.” “May I have one please?” Well, okay, maybe he had a hot date later. I went below and got him one. He removed it from the package, inflated it, tied a knot in the end, and fastened it onto the fishing line! We sat there watching the condom float bob behind the boat, glad that the boat was docked bow in so dockside passersby could not see it, and glad that it was too dark for opposing boat owners across the channel to make out what it was that was drifting off the stern. And as the complete absurdity of it registered, we began to laugh hysterically, Despite the fact that we still caught no fish, would such a novelty item be marketable?