Here are two things you need to know: 1) as a child in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, my favorite place to play was in what I called the creek. People not as creative might have called it sewer drainage. 2) In the summer of 2005, I not only brought – but also wore – makeup to Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, my only and only camping excursion.

I’m not exactly sure how I evolved from Person A to Person B, but somehow I became the kind of person who yells, “I love the mall!” just to watch my fellow MFA classmates have strokes.  It just so happens that loving the mall is also true.  And though I spent a great many years tromping through the creek and the park that it was in, I’ve never been a big fan of nature.  I don’t feel compelled to say mushy things about it or protest about it or whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing as a humanities graduate student/fan of folk music.

Which is where I was when Rick decided to take me fishing on the first of two non-license days in Pennsylvania.  Problem: pending rain.  But he wanted to say that he at least took me to water.

[Did you ever get markers from the Disney Store as a kid?
And they smelled weirdly of fish?
Whatever the Play-Doh bait Rick used smelled exactly like those markers.]

We are in the city, though, and it takes a bit of driving to get to water.  There are spots here and there once you get out toward the suburbs, such as behind a Costco, which happens to be next door-ish to Robinson Mall.

[I find this to be hilarious. Also, the surrounding flowers smelled of corn chips. Explain.]

Here’s how well I cast: I didn’t actually catch Rick, which would be expected. He moves faster than the token cut-to exasperated man on television.  I only got a few chances before it started to drizzle, clouding up the water or something that Rick explained and I vaguely committed to memory.  One last stop at the bridge, though, just in case.

[Oh, do you not go fishing with a Sweet Valley High book in your pocket?
Do you also go out in public aware that the pockets on women’s jeans are not the right size for books?]

Then, downpour. Then, bleeding. And more downpour.

Next logical move?

Road trip to Wheeling, West Virginia!

[Obvi.]

Because if you can’t go fishing, you spend three hours in Cabela’s.  (I agreed to this entirely on the premises that I could both blog about it and stop at Waffle House on the way back to the city.)

Have you ever been to Cabela’s?  It’s like the mall, but for people who want the end result to be a day in the woods instead of a night on the town.  They had a gun section, a camping section, a general store, a restaurant, a clothing section, a boating section, a plane hanging from the ceiling, a press-a-penny station, and more stuffed critters than the actual natural history museum in Pittsburgh.

[He’s pretty tough. I might put down a couple bucks.]

Let us not forget the fishing section.  I started to form this thought prior to our excursion when Rick took me on a tutorial in the fishing section of Dick’s.  Substitute the surrounding atmosphere and the people working behind the counter and the fishing section is the exact same thing as Michaels.  There’s fishing wire and hooks and beads and shiny things and rubbery things and boxes with little compartments to hold everything in.  There are even bobbins – just bigger.  What moron/genius decided to separate these two places and make it verboten for one gender to express interest in another gender’s store?  Seriously, put this business together, everyone can go shopping at once, and we all come home with eight thousand tiny pieces to lose at inconvenient times.

[Except for me. I’m taking home this guy. I’ll take good care of you – promise.]