It Happens in Dreams and Real Life, Too

I'm talking about what we've all come to know as a twist of fate.

Take, for instance, my dream last night, in which I was polishing off the last morsels of what had been a sinfully delicious coconut-cream pie. I probably should explain here that we had bought one of these pies at the grocery store just the other day.

Directions on the box specifically had said you shouldn't keep the pie for more than three days, and, after all, who am I to argue with the manufacturer? In actuality, I didn't finish the pie last night (the third night). Instead, I left a sliver for my wife, which I was reminded of during the night, when I happened to glance out the bathroom window and saw a mere "sliver" of moon showing, off in the distance.

With this reminder tucked away in my memory bank, I toddled back to bed after taking care of business and--you guessed it--started dreaming about scarfing down that last piece of pie. Here's where fate intervened, though.

For just as I was scraping bits together for one final heaping mouthful, I lost control of the pie pan. And instead of the contents going into my "pie hole," they ended up, with a resounding splat, in the middle of the floor.

At the same moment, I awoke and couldn't resist the temptation to chuckle to myself about how crazy the whole thing seemed. As I lay there awake for a few moments, I found my mind drifting back over some real-life events that had left me anything but chuckling to myself.

One that immediately leaped to the forefront was an occasion a couple years ago when I tied into what I know had to have been a big striper in West Neck Creek.

He smacked my bait and immediately headed straight toward the middle of the creek, taking drag at will. Throughout the run, he momentarily would slow down, only to resume his headlong rush to try and escape.

It wasn't until I finally realized I probably wasn't going to be able to turn him, and/or that some unsuspecting boater might run over my line and cut it, that I started after the fish, with my trolling motor on high. Then, in an instant, as my line went limp, I had to accept the realization that fate had struck again.

Unlike a night many years earlier on Kerr Lake, when I was with a friend who boated a giant striper on an ultralight rig, I wouldn't see this fish or get any photos. Instead, my long-running pursuit of Bubba continues.

Perhaps the lesson here, if one exists, is that I should follow the advice my folks always used to give me as a kid, and just "take small bites." I always seem to "choke" on those big ones.