I might be the only 56 year-old two-year-old I know. I’m certainly symptomatic of a two-year-old as far as asking “Why” goes.
Just when I thought I was out of questions –I drove home on a road that took me past an entire slough of why’s. The wind was blowing out of some cold direction. The diagonal ground drifting was shifting my eyesight from the road to the little village of ice fishing houses I saw atop the frozen water. I used to think that a real, yummy hot dish made with tater tots and hamburger, rich sharp cheddar cheese, corn, onions, cream of mushroom and cream of chicken soup was enough to turn a man on until I drove by the slough and asked, “Why?” Why do men get turned on by frozen ice holes?
Why is it that it’s too cold to take the garbage out but it’s not too cold to sit on a frozen slough looking down a murky hole hoping a fish floats by and takes the bait?
Why is it that it’s too cold to start the truck to drive your wife to the mall to go shopping for shoes but it’s not too cold to start your pickup truck to park it on a frozen slough or lake and partake?
Why is it that it’s too cold to go sledding with the kids but it’s not too cold to sit on a frozen slough or lake for eight hours at a time with your buddies doing whatever it is that buddies do?
You may have begged, pleaded, or implored that husband of yours to build you a garden shed. A garden shed would make you frolic along like you had peace like a river. He must like chaos like an angry ocean because he never did make time to build you that shed that would bring you peace. “She sheds” are serendipitous! Even in the mild temperatures of spring he simply couldn’t find time to complete it- but by gosh! Even at the booger freezing, nose-hair-frosting temperature of -20 below he found plenty of time to load, haul, unload and build an ice house on a frozen slough or lake. You couldn’t buy the shoes but by gosh! He had plenty to buy the beef jerky, beer, spitters, chips and chew!
Why is it that he can find when and where to buy his fishing license but for the life of him he can’t figure out how to renew his own driver’s license? Maybe if the DMV would put an icehouse office on the lake it wouldn’t be so hard.
When it came time for me to turn him on with my hot dish, I realized why men get turned on by frozen holes in the ice. They escape to the lake to run away from the nag. They escape to the slough to be free of you and me and all the other distractions that men build up just from having to be men. They escape our frigidity to a place that is a much more simple kind of cold. They run from our demands. The grocery list day after week after month after year gets to be quite a load even when the end result is a ravishing satisfaction to their appetites like hotdish, potatoes and pie. We women get our nails done when the hum of stress gets to be too much for us. We get pampered with a massage or shop until we drop and still we come home to nag and complain, yell, stomp and grind our teeth. No wonder men escape to a frozen hole in the ice. Don’t let the big one get away girls! Reel him in by being less naggy and more braggy!
While I wonder like a two-year-old, “What’s up with what’s down there?” I am distracted by the knowing that it’s much deeper than just the fish swimming cold in the lake. It’s about taking a break from always having to be strong or wrong. It’s about our menfolk taking a vacation from the grocery list, the honey-do’s, the honey don’ts and all the other tasks, projects and work we have planned for men.
My last question in my wondering two-year-old mind attached to my 56 year old body is, “Why couldn’t I have gotten a husband who likes to fish from a frozen hole in the ice?” That way – together we’d have a private place right on a lake to eat the hot dish I’d like to make. Men like food. Women like kisses. What better place to make passionate love than in a heated icehouse with a hole for peeking at swimming fishes?
If you wish your bobbers to bob often – in your search for the perch – invite your wives to perch alongside you. May your houses on ice forever be hot. And that’s my recipe for love-hook, line and sinker!
The Blonde on the Prairie is a lover of ND. She is an author and motivational speaker, owner of “Monkey Balls” food truck and Joyologist to the elderly and disabled.
