Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Then have I got a story for you..

12 year old slip goes fishing with his grandfather.. Of course around here we're basically fishing in dirty salty water, it's not the type of thing you think of when you think 'swimming'.. I live by the coast, but I've never fished on the coast, just on the bayous and rivers and stuff around here.. The 'fishing waters' around here are all filled with hardheads (if catfish are the devil, then hardheads are Satan himself, not only do they have the spines other catfish have, it also has a bacteria or something on it's skin that increases the pain when one of those barbs break skin.. It can be as painful as putting a cigarette out on your arm) and crabs..

ANYWAYS (why all that is really relevant, I have no idea, but I figured I'd set up the scenery while I was at it) me and grandpa fishing, I land the biggest bite I've ever seen (we did a lot of fishing, a friend once landed a black drum, within 30 seconds of casting his line out, with no bait on the hook.. We were just making sure everything was casting smooth, and this drum was about a foot and a half long, pretty damn big fish compared to what you normally bring in around here) and reel it in.. On the other end is the hugest catfish I had ever seen in person..
A bit bigger than that..

Anyways, we take it home, grandpa asks me if I wanna clean it, I say not right now I'll do it later, and of course being the little kid I am, later never comes. He tells me he's fixing to throw it out, and since it's the biggest fish I've ever caught, I want to eat the son of a ***, so I'm left with no choice but to do it now.. So I grab everything.. Knifes, paper towels, bring the trashcan within throwing range, needle nose pliars, the usual things you need to clean a catfish..

I chop off the head, but for whatever reason, I don't toss it, I just leave it sitting there.. So I start to go and pull the skin off (for those who haven't ever had to skin a catfish, it's almost impossible, even with tools.. They don't have scales, they have skin, and it has to be removed before cooking, but that stuff just doesn't wanna budge, you literally end up pulling with all your might, at least if you're ~12) and then the pliars slip off the skin.. Happens a lot, you don't think twice about it after a while..

Bout 3 seconds after they slipped I felt a searing pain in the middle of my hand, and I looked over, and the catfish head is now somehow attatched to my hand.. It still isn't clicking, but when I move my hand, so does the head.. Then I spot it.. dead center of (the inside) of my palm, there's a bulge.. The top most spine on that catfish head had impaled my hand, nearly literally, completely through.. It just didn't go through the skin on the other side of my hand after having already impaled it on the far side..