There are fairly common moments in my life where I have a thought that feels terribly inappropriate and I rarely, if ever, admit them to anyone. That’s what’s nice about having a blog, I can admit this shit to a thousand or so strangers and not worry about what they’ll think of me.

As my plane was beginning it’s descent into Austin and I was thinking about all of funeral shit that I was soon to be subjected to, my brain got instantly excited at the thought that I’d get to go fishing again with my Uncle B. I kept waiting for the grief and sorrow to kick in, yet all I really wanted to do was load up some Shiner Bock, some cigars, the fly-rods, and take his boat out on Lake Belton.

Now be cool, I’m not a complete heartless ass. I felt sad and shit at the funeral-planning session, when we had to go around and share stories of Gramma. I started in with her and her infamous “walking farts,” but after many a sharp glance from my dad and the pastor, I relented with the fact that she was the ONLY person in my family that ever remembered every single damn birthday of mine for 30 straight years. That zinger got Dad to hang his head.

HA! SternLook me motherfucker?

I was doing really well at being the good grandchild and all that shit until the pastor asked (*ahem* prodded, guilted, forced…) me to do “a reading of scripture” at the services. I’m about as comfortable reading from a Bible as I am from a book of Japanese Tax Laws, so when she handed it to me and I started shaking my hands and making sizzling noises with my mouth, she started to grasp the idea that I was going to be the token fuck-up in the group.

The funeral went surprisingly well, and I was more than happy to blend into the background behind my more flamboyant relatives (yeah, I KNOW), only nodding sympathetically and answering the barrage of questions that almost always opened with, “So, you’re really moving to Australia?”

I’d done my time in my 10-year old cheeseass suit, the reception was going in full-swing… it was time to fish. Me, The Brother, and Uncle B loaded up as much Shiner as possible and headed out into the brisk early-evening. We’d been trolling, fishing lazily, and drinking heavily when WifeToBe called.

I’d expressed my happiness at the fact that she and The Mom got along so well, but now she would get the full-on Brother the Charmer treatment. She was tentative, at first, but I knew she’d warm up to him quickly when the background noise of him emptying his bladder off the side of the boat caused her to say, “I can tell you’re brothers, you pee the same.”

For two people who talk so differently, they got along great, and The Brother and Uncle B got treated to our distinct brand of schmoopieness while we were repeatedly dive-bombed by a couple of Blow-The-Fuck-Outta-Middle-Easterners-And-Fishing-Boat Apache Helicopters.

Fort Hood is right off the lake, and despite the fact that I could make out the Pilot’s eye-color as he kept swooping by, he failed to notice me giving his “bird” the “bird.” WifeToBe suggested that I should moon him, for she surely would were she there, but I reminded her of the existence of such a thing as Hellfire Missiles and my desire to keep them from protruding from my rectum.

Considering the circumstances that brought me there, I couldn’t have been happier in that moment. My brother got to “meet” my fianc?, she still loves me and doesn’t think I’m the retard that I am, I was drunk, smoking a cigar, and catching more fish than The Brother and my uncle. The only possible way it could’ve gotten better would’ve been if I’d have actually hooked the wheel struts of that fucking helicopter with the BigAss Bass Rod and scored a Jackie-Chan-style waterski ride.

Provided it didn’t yank my arms from my sockets, that would’ve totally fuckin’ rocked.