The Aardvark’s Tongue

Well we don’t know what it is about this summer but there is certainly something fishy going on. This week’s oddity comes from North Carolina where David Hayes hauled in a 21 pound catfish using his granddaughters Barbie fishing pole (as if the Monster Shark Hunt and the Mountauk Monster hadn’t provided enough weirdness).

According to the press release from the N. C. Wildlife Resources Commission Hayes was fishing on a private pond when his granddaughter asked him to hold her Barbie rod so she could go inside to the bathroom. “A few minutes later, the float went under and I saw the water start boiling up — I knew right then that I had my hands full with that fishing rod” said Hayes.

Now that’s a heartwarming fish story.

Wow, if Shark-Week and the Oak Bluffs Monster Shark Hunt weren’t enough, the latest environmental oddity to wash-up on our shores is the Montauk Monster.

Could it be:

• An unknown and highly endangered marine mammal
• A sea turtle absent its shell (perhaps as a result of our Hawksbill-Turtle Bidet)
• The cast-off body parts of Michael Jackson or
• A discarded experiment from the government animal-disease research facility on Plum Island?

We could use something eloquent here. A bit of Robert Burns is in order:

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

– From the poem To a Mouse –