American Thighs by Jill Conner Browne Page B

him which I did and made the on-the-spot observation that there was no way in hell I could pick the sonofabitch up by myself, especially at that angle, without joining him in the water.
    Laura was squealing—hell, we were all three squealing like big ole girls—and the boys in New York were pretty shrill their-ownselves, truth be told. Laura flung the camera down by the phone and grabbed the rim of the net. Between the two of us, using all our strength, we managed to get him up out of the water, but he was too big and too unwieldy, we couldn’t hold him, and we—me, Laura, and Orca—fell back in the grass.
    We sat up and surveyed our quarry, with many “Holy shit’s” accompanying. Laura recovered herself sufficiently to crawl out from under the leviathan and over to the camera. We could hear the boys yelling, “WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS IT? HOWMUCH DOES IT WEIGH?” But we were too agog to answer them.
    Our dog, Sostie, was right there with us—she loves it when we catch fish and she always races over the second she hears anybody’s line tense up with a fish. Even Sostie was agog at this creature and she crept in for a close look. Now, Sostie weighs about fifty-five to sixty pounds—not exactly huge for a dog—but pretty outstanding for a fish. The photos show Sostie lying on the bank beside our Most Dangerous Catch—and the fish is bigger around than she is. The photos also show the fish lying next to my own extended legs—which are normally several hundred times longer than any fish we bring in. This guy was almost as long as my legs. You know I’m six-feet one, right?
    Laughing fit to kill, we (Angie) unhooked the big galoot and we (all three of us) heaved him off the bank and back into the lake. It sounded like we’d all just done a simultaneous cannonball when he hit the water—the boys on the phone thought we’d been dragged to our deaths for sure.
    I’m talking big fucking fish here. We couldn’t pick him up to weigh him—and even if we could, our little scale is made for weighing your regulation-size bream and bass—its manufacturer was not really allowing for the possibility of snagging Nessie and wanting to weigh her.
    We showed the photos to the lake manager the next day. He said he was pretty sure—if we had only been able to documentit—we had the state record GRASS CARP. Bwahahahaha! We’da never caught the thing if Angie hadn’t accidentally hooked his fin—they eat plants and are totally disinterested in bait of any kind.
    Trolling report: Close as I ever got—or want to get—to a “three-way,” but I’ll share a big’un like that with Angie and Laura again any ole time!
    Highly Personal Foul
    Perhaps it’s been a bit too long since I actually went to a stadium to watch a football game—the lure of comfy seating, a fully stocked bar, food at my fingertips, high-def screens, and handy (not to mention clean) restrooms have somehow triumphed over backless bleachers, warm beer, stale popcorn, and long lines for nasty ladies’ rooms. Never been quite sure how the name “ladies’ room” stuck—sure never looks like many “ladies” have been up in ’em—looks more like a gang of spotted-ass apes had been housed in there until their zoo quarters were made ready for ’em, right before game time.
    And the high-definition thing—how is it possible to make stuff look BETTER on teevee than it actually does in person? So anyway, it’s gotten pretty cushy to forgo the live experience at the stadium and so I suppose it’s possible, likely even, that I have grown out of touch with the whole football experience.
    This was never more clear to me than after the rehash of a Typical Game Weekend my daughter, Bailey, shared with me, during the course of which I have no doubt many salient points were glossed over, somehow omitted, or