Fleet feet complete dark dash for fish food

If you’d have spontaneously popped into my world at around midnight last Saturday evening, you would have found me frozen in fear in total darkness while standing barefoot in the corner of my backyard with a cottage cheese container in my hand.

Up until a few minutes before, Kristin and I had been in the midst of throwing our bags together for a quick trip to Michigan the next morning to pick up several thousand young saplings for the annual tree sale at my place of employment. It was during this effort that I’d suddenly remembered the catfish in my basement.

That phrase, “the catfish in my basement,” may seem odd to readers who have just casually happened across this column. The rest of you, however, are likely neither shocked nor even mildly surprised I have recently made room in my life for a couple of fingerling catfish that presently inhabit a 5-gallon water jug on my basement workbench. The pair, tentatively named “One fish” and “Two fish” (in a nod to the late, great grandmaster of silly children’s literature, Dr. Seuss) were acquired during the annual fish sale at my place of employment the week before.

The idea is to entertain and educate my grandsons with the bewhiskered little finsters until they outgrow their surroundings and then release them into a nearby pond. Based upon their rate of consumption and growth, freedom is likely to come sooner rather than later.

These little “kittens” would eat 24 hours a day if I could keep up with them. At present they’re munching down worm after worm and look to have grown at least a half an inch in the week they’ve lived with me. Simple math leads me to conclude that within a few months I might have trouble squirting them out of the spout of their bottle in order to set them free. Nevertheless, in the meantime they’re fun for me, and I’m pretty sure I’m fun for them as I supply squirming sustenance from above like some sort of giant, land-bound fish god.

Back to my backyard. Having remembered my fish-fatherly duties, I’d walked out into the rain to grab up a handful of night crawlers from the vicinity of my compost pile in the far corner of the yard. Worms can be had there for no greater effort than bending over and grabbing them up as they lull about the landscape looking for love. A soft step, quick hand and a narrow flashlight beam are all that’s required. In mere minutes I had accumulated a two-day supply and turned toward the house. That’s when things got complicated. My flashlight cut out!

One cannot safely navigate the expanse of a small grass lawn frequently occupied by a large and digestively prolific dog without a full and complete awareness of where his “deposits” have been made. Doing so in darkness carries an elevated level of peril in that one must step only where the flashlight has declared the path to be clear of debris. Walking in bare feet escalates the consequences of a misstep considerably. Walking in bare feet without a flashlight is akin to playing dodge ball in a minefield.

It wasn’t pretty, that blind and barefoot dash through the danger zone, but I gritted my teeth, curled my toes and ran straight for the garden hose, knowing that win or lose a good squirt was the only thing to save me from completely grossing out!

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John atjlorson@alonovus.com.