The Day Claude Went Fishing

by Arlene Payne

It seemed that Claude was doing a lot of pickin' but not much grinnin' on the morning he said he was determined to reel in a good catch from the stagnant pond which held buoyant white and gray matter and other brainy particulate. He said that no kind of booger could scare him away from the big ass Asian Mekong Giant catfish that sucked its way up his nose and into his viscous sinus lakes. Even after a few good grasps on the slippery mammoth fish, all Claude could pull from his nares were a few bristly whiskers. Claude wasn’t sure if these were his own nasal whiskers or those of the big ass sucking catfish. A fecal impaction would have let go a lot easier.

Four hours passed quickly as the tug of war continued with Claude’s pole arched into a recoil ready to snap from one further tug. The catfish was like a snapping turtle refusing to let go until it thundered. Claude’s face was crimson; he was heated up like an old wood stove. He said, “I’ll get you now my pretty,” as his prostrated index finger disappeared out of sight. He felt a lightening of pressure and was certain that he had a grasp of the catfish’s tail, but soon discovered it was merely his nasal septum that had dislodged. Tenaciously, Claude probed further into his hypothalamus intensifying his olfactory senses so that now he knew he could keenly smell the stench of that darned old catfish. He tipped his hat while saying “good evening lady” and commenced to blow his nose fog horn style, thinking he could birth said catfish into his monogrammed handkerchief, but all he got was a disgusting handful of spiny fins. This reminded him of all the lumps of coal and peanut brittle he had received as gifts on Christmases past.

Claude had almost given up catching the freaky Asian fish, when suddenly he began to hallucinate or was it really the slippery catfish head reentering the world from the abyss of Claude’s nasal cavity? Alas, the gigantic fish suddenly catapulted from the left nare like the launch of the Sputnik, clipped Claude’s left shoulder, and landed with a tremendous thud onto the sandy pond bank. Seeing the poor gasping creature floundering about, Claude -- being the kind hearted man he is -- decided that all he was really missing from this ordeal was his index finger which was still dangling from the fish’s mouth. Claude reached down and mercifully cradled the dypsneic catfish in his palms while gingerly flinging the miserable stinker back into the murky pond water.

His finger was gone forever and he knew he had done enough serious fishing on this day to last him a lifetime. Grinnin' but no longer pickin', Claude -- still in possession of his mental faculties -- proudly sauntered back home to explain to Kathy, his devoted sugar booger, how miraculously he came to lose only his pickin' finger in this awesome fishing expedition. Claude knew that Kathy would be ever so impressed and would think this was a whale of a tale!

Click here to see the photograph which inspired this story.