You Might… :: Sandra Stenson

You might be married to an exiled south Florida fishing nut when, during football season:
1. On the first Sunday in recent memory you actually get to sleep late, your fishing nut suddenly bolts upright and exclaims with panic “Crap, I’ve gotta go to Hooters.” (The only place in town a Dolphin fan can cheer on his team in peace.)

2. The days the Fins are on regular TV are national holidays and not to be defiled with any kind of untoward, productive activity.

3. Every Sunday morning you receive a detailed weather report for the location in which the Dolphins will be playing (to augment your regular updates on players’ health and Fin draftees).

4. Your fishing nut leaves for his Monday business meeting on Saturday, so he won’t have to travel during holy Football Sunday (surely, you don’t mind holding down the fort alone one extra day).

5. Your cats are named after Mr. Zack Thomas and Mr. Larry Szonka.

6. Your den is decorated with autographed team photos from a time just slightly before you were born─evidently the glory days for a certain south Florida team.

7. Your fishing nut’s favorite scene in the multi-novel opus you have been working on for the last twenty-some years is a parenthetical discourse in which a Hurricane fan trash-talks BU.

You might be married to an exiled south Florida fishing nut when:
1. You had to quit your job as a research scientist for a Cambridge pharmaceutical company just at the time you were being promoted because your husband was cold and homesick.

2. Your husband walks around in forty-degree weather wearing open-toed shoes, a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and a fleece vest─claiming to be dressed for the weather (on account of the fleece, you see)─all the time complaining loudly how unbearably cold it is.

3. During the six weeks of deep winter up here in the panhandle, you hear your fishing nut’s continual lament about how brown and drab everything is because some of the trees had the nerve to drop their leaves and some homeowners dared plant grass that dies back during the winter.

4. Your fishing nut seeks solace during the harsh winter weeks by spending a large portion of them in south Florida or the Bahamas on “business” trips.

You might be married to an exiled south Florida fishing nut when:
1. Your fishing nut knows every puddle and fishing hole between Key West and Wakulla Springs.

2. Hubby is on a first name basis with every fly shop and tackle store owner south of Tampa.

3. He has long stories about every bridge, pier (and watering hole) in Sarasota, Fort Lauderdale, and Key West.

4. He has absolutely no personal experience of the fishing right outside his front door, up here in the muddy waters of the Delta.

You might be married to an exiled south Florida fishing nut when:
1. His idea of a dress shirt is a fishing shirt adorned with a slightly pricier logo.

2. His idea of dress shoes are boat shoes.

3. His idea of home décor encompasses: actual fishing gear, contraptions that hold fishing gear, pictures of fishing gear, and pictures of people fishing─tastefully contrasted with stylish dolphin commemorative plaques.

4. He purchases not one, but four, pink flamingos to flank your poor, solitary imported German garden gnome immediately after it finally arrived following an arduous journey involving five Atlantic crossings. The gnome beat a retreat to the backyard. The unforeseen advantage is our house is now very easy to find.

5. You find not one but two “Best of Jimmy Buffet” CDs in your husband’s truck (along with hula hoops and various assorted bits of fishing gear, of course).

6. You drive hours out of your way, passing by scores of similar restaurants to enjoy something battered and fried at Lulu’s.

You might be married to an exiled south Florida fishing nut when:
1. Your fishing nut went back to school in his early thirties because he wanted to have more free time available for fishing.

2. The hardest part about going back to school for him was having to sell his boat and a large part of his extensive fishing gear collection to finance the endeavor (and losing a long-term girlfriend—which wasn’t quite as painful).

3. He decided to major in Marine Biology to take advantage of his thirty years of field training in the subject area.

4. He finally switched to Information Science so he could, one day, run a digital publishing company and publish, edit and contribute to his own outdoor magazine, a main focus of which is fishing in crystal clear waters.

Finally, you might be married to an exiled south Florida fishing nut when there is actually one thing upon which your husband and your mother agree─you should move back to south Florida─ yesterday.

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