News from the home front: I received a new fly rod for Christmas.
It's been sitting around for a while, so I decided to put some line on
it and try it out. No sooner was the line in place on the reel than
Missy showed up and grabbed the end. I tugged. She tugged. I tugged
harder.
     Suddenly line was stripping off the reel like there was a
twenty-pound steelhead on the other end. Missy vanished around the corner
and up the stairs. The rod bent sharply as I applied pressure,
desperately trying to slow the flight of my prey before I ran out of
line. There was a pause from the other end of the line. I cautiously
picked up a few turns on the reel.
    The rod nearly snapped from the force of Missy's reaction. Somewhere
two flights of stairs above me there was a war going on. The reel was
hissing and she had me down to twenty feet of line when she ran out of
room to run. A battle of patience began. Over and over again I would
gain a few feet of line, only to see it ripped from the reel in a mad
three-second dash. Seinfeld cracked jokes unheeded as I sweated the
minutes out. Would she break my new rod? Could she? Mental comparison of
the energy of a ten pound fish versus the strength of an eight pound
Missy with an attitude did not come up favorably. I decided to play dead
for a while.
    There was a thirty second pause, when Missy did something no fish
could ever duplicate. While I was resting, she must have traveled up the
line and taken a fresh grip, for my safety reserve of twenty feet of
line whizzed away in a twinkling. I hit the end of the line and the
rod bent ninety, a hundred degrees, then more. We were paused at the
cusp of a battle of skills and wills, each unwilling to yield the last
inch. The rod creaked. Seinfeld ended, commercials ran.
    For a split second her attention slipped and the rod jerked upright.
I reeled in like a mad thing, a thing tormented. The line went slack!
Faster, faster! Line was piling up on the reel and I heard her mad
scrambling passing overhead, back towards the stairs. She stumbled on
the first flight and I had her down to the upstairs hall where the
surface was slippery and hard. But she was not finished yet. Somehow she
regained a grip and by main force dragged another twenty feet off the
reel, using raw power where guile availed nothing. I think she was in
the living room when she dug in her heels.
    Now at this point I would love to throw in a bit about aching hands
and back, blisters and line burns and such, but hey, we're talking about
light trout tackle here, not swordfish gear. Well anyways.
    Missy holed up in the living room forever. The fight was over half
an hour old and my concentration was starting to slip when I felt a tiny
change. The rod still quivered and bucked, but the tempo had slowed just
barely. Missy was tiring. Adrenaline surged as I risked all, put all the
tension on the rod could take (and a wee bit more, Captain) and we were
slugging it out in earnest. I yanked, I hauled, I dragged her stiff
legged to the top of the first flight of stairs. She was no longer
snarling and spitting, but fought on in dogged silence, the will
unyielding where the body must. Two minutes we fought on the stairs as
her traction increased on the carpet, and it was over. She was in sight
and still fighting like a terrier. I pulled her up to the foot of the
chair, ready to grab her.
    But this was no mere fish. Unbowed in defeat, she merely released
the line, turned her back to me, flipped her tail in the air and stalked
off in dignity undiminished.
.
.
    Tonight I dangled the line at her few times to see if she was
interested. She wasn't.
 
--- Maximus 3.01
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