I recently returned to my home town and had lunch with three of my childhood friends. A lot of the stories they told were stories I had spent the last twenty years trying to forget. While I did manage to forget several as soon as they began telling them the vivid picture of each on returned to my mind. I can’t say I am proud of them all but I now understand that they are part of who I am and what I have become.

My cousin reminded me of a story that deals with he and I getting exactly what we wanted. And it turns out just like most stories of people getting what they want.

We just wanted to go fishing and camp out. We pestered my dad for a couple of days to take us to the river bottoms and let us camp and fish for a couple of days. So Friday afternoon he relented and hauled us and our boat to a large creek where we could fish. We put the boat in the water and removed our camping goods from his truck, we said, “Goodbye” and watched him pull away into the distance. Wasting no time we quickly loaded the boat with our fishing gear and set out.

We spent the next couple of hours putting out trotlines, which are 50 foot long lines with hooks every foot, and yo-yo’s which are automatic fishing reals that hook a fish when it bites the hook and pulls it up out of the water. With this process done we landed the boat and began carrying our gear to some friends duck blind.

As the evening progressed we checked our lines and put fish in a live basket to clean later. Then shortly before midnight it began to rain. Not sprinkle or drizzle but rain. This did two things. It prevented us from going back and checking our lines but it also meant we had to get up in the duck blind to try to sleep.

Since it was summer we didn’t bring sleeping bags or any type of sleeping equipment. We each took a corner and began to curl up to try to sleep. Within a few minutes we began to realize that the blind had not been built to withstand wind-driven rain. Well the sides and top had not, the floor had been built very tight and held water nicely.

The next problem arose when my cousin turned on the lantern to check the growing water problem. When we looked around to find leaks to stuff paper in we discovered several large spiders on the ceiling. Since we were both scared of spiders we sat in the corner of the blind soaking up the water and making a game out of shooting the spiders of the ceiling with his .22 rifle. Yes this made holes in the ceiling for water to come in but it also helped my psyche knowing the spiders were dead.

When we finally fell asleep we each had our behinds setting on 8 inch square dry spots made higher by cardboard boxes. Sleep is always welcome in these situations and it was exactly what each of us needed.

We got exactly what we wanted but we did not know what the outcome would be before we started. If we had asked instead of demanded my dad may have told us it was going to rain. Many times in life people head off and do things they think they want to do only to have to pay consequences later. I still pay stupid tax from time to time but I also learn about what I want and make more educated decisions about what I am doing.

Psalm 23 says, “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.”  The next time you want something out of selfish ambition think of this funny story.