I caught a fish THIS BIG!

One of my co workers said to me recently that she doesn't laugh like she did as a kid or even as she did as a young adult. One of those belly laughs, that just comes from inside you and you just can't stop. I told her I still have so many laughs like that and I wonder if I'm just lucky? I have funny people in my life, family, friends and one of the funniest is my youngest brother Joey.

From the time he was a baby he had a huge audience. He's the youngest of the 7 of us and there was more often than not company at our dining room table. His high chair was his stage! My friend Kathy has reminded me lately of his days when he was into the show "Happy Days" and especially the Fonz. Our brother Bob bought him a faux leather jacket to match the Fonz and Joey was the Fonz. Again, Kathy reminded me how Joey would answer our front door in his Fonz jacket saying "cool yule". He was always entertaining.

Joey and my youngest sister are only 3 years apart and as kids they could be best friends one minute and fighting the next. My parents would constantly tell Deb "why do you listen to him" and Joey would bust her chops more by saying one thing, followed by "why do you listen to me" with a smirk on his face, infuriating her more. He would almost touch her and she would scream and tell on him and he wasn't touching her, he was tormenting her. Unfortunately for Debbie, all her friends loved having Joey around, they got a kick out of him and though Debbie finds him hysterical now, the last thing she wanted when she was a teenager, was having her little brother hanging out with her friends. But he was their entertainment.

My sister Linda can laugh at him now and there's a 10 year different between them but he wasn't so funny to Linda. I came hoe from work once and he was about 8 and Linda 18. Joey had locked her out of our house and was smiling at her in the window. She was furious and I was laughing. I mean he was 8. How did he get her locked out, she was babysitting. She's a great mom now and I'm glad to say that none of her children have or want to lock her out of the house. Well, they haven't locked her out of the house.

And me, well I was always laughing at Joey, I thought everything he did was cute or funny and my father used to tell me, all the time, "someday you're not going to think he's so funny". Never! How could I not find Joey funny!?

I hate to say it but there was a short time that my father was right. Parents always are!!!

Growing up our front door was always unlocked. I remember my mom going through the "locking the door" stage but it never lasted very long. There were too many of us and at one time or another someone was ringing the bell because they lost their key. She just gave up.

There came a time when it was just Joey and I living in our family home and I worked all day and didn't really like the idea of leaving the door unlocked. Joey was about 20 and though I loved most of his friends, I didn't want any of them walking in and out of the house when we weren't home. We started to lock the door.

I cannot tell you how many times Joey lost his keys! Really. I can't count. He worked a local job at that time and would leave later than I did and get home earlier. He would be out until 2 or 3 in the morning and wake me up to let him in the house. Again, I really can't count but it was ridiculous. The mornings after he woke me up, I would be super pissed and yelling at him for losing another key. How could this keep happening? He even had a car!! He had a car and that key he never lost! Why would anyone keep 2 separate keys? Joey!

Finally one morning I came down to breakfast after another night of being woken up in the wee hours and greeted Joey with a big smile and said good morning. He was shocked and asked me what was going on. I told him I had it with the lost keys. From now on if he lost his key, he had to wave a 20 dollar bill at the window after he woke me and if he didn't have a 20, I wasn't opening the door.

Do you know that was the last time he lost his key!? How much money I could have made! Now I laugh about it but I coulda made a mint!!!

Speaking of mint. I had this mint garment bag, a really expensive well made bag that was a gift from co-workers and Joey was going away for the weekend and asked if he could use it. I hadn't even used it yet, but I figured what could he possibly do to it? Well...Sunday night Joey comes home and tells me how much fun he had. I told him I was glad but where's my garment bag. He told me he came home with a different group of guys and my bag was in another car and would be dropped off. I still wasn't worried. He then told me how he and his friends shaved an eyebrow off of their friend Mike when he passed out. Mike was fair skinned and blue eyed but had really dark hair and dark eyebrows. Poor guy, he had to shave the other one, wore sunglasses for a month or so and the nickname "Brows" lasted for years.

The next day I came home from work and noticed that someone left my garment bag on the deck in the backyard. Perfect condition! I decided to unpack the bag and throw his clothes in the laundry and brought the bag inside. When I unzipped it I was disgusted to find that it was filled with fish! All different kinds of fish. His toothbrush was in the mouth of a fish, his shoes were filled with them, pockets of his shorts and jackets filled with fish, everywhere fish!! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it, Brows worked at the Fulton Street Fish Market. I was fuming but our Joey, as usual, shrugs it all off, trust me the guy doesn't sweat the small stuff, bought me a new bag, which I told had to be girly, with flowers or something, anything that would look ridiculous for him to carry. He did and all was well, for then.

Not long after, I came home from work and Joey told me he had gone fishing and there was fresh fish in the fridge and also to come out in the yard and see the big fish he caught which he had in a cooler. I looked at the fish and I guess it was a nice size but I shrugged and asked him what he was going to do with it. He told me he wanted to show his friends. A day went by, 2 days, 3 days, by the 4th day I could see through the glass doors to the back and there were flies surrounding the cooler. When Joey came in I told him to get rid of the fish. I said there were probably maggots in the cooler. He brushes me off, like I'm crazy and walked outside, closing the door behind him, but I could still see him. He opened the cooler and jumped back from the smell. I knew it had to be bad when he jumped and unfortunately when he came back in, so did some of that smell. It was airborne, not long before the entire neighborhood would be smelling it. I told him to get rid of the fish and the cooler. NOW!

I didn't know what he did with it, but it was gone.

At the time our yard faced a new street where there would soon be a school and supermarket. People would take walks back there for exercise or just checking on the development of the school and most of the people that visited our house parked back there. I could hear people talking as they walked by our back fence and then I would hear them gagging, asking what was that smell?! I was going to kill him!!! I can't believe he just took the fish and threw it out by the construction. Then our doorbell rings. It's our neighbor, who had to have seen the cooler from his own back window. My neighbor just looked at me like, sorry, but you know why I'm here. Again, I wasn't laughing, I told Joey to take the cooler and the fish to the city dump. He went out the front door to get his car and drive it around back to pick up the smelly gross cooler.

I had to make sure he wasn't going to just move it further away from our house and as I was walking out the back gate, my sister and her husband had just parked and were getting out of their car, waving the air in front of them and also looking like they were going to gag. What the heck smelled so bad! I told them and they were laughing. It was Joey, he just has that way, you can't help but laugh, a lot more when you don't live with him. Joey drove around and grabbed the cooler and was about to put it in his car when my brother in law stopped him. He told him not to put it in his car, he'd never get the smell out. Tie it to the back of the car and drag it and that's what Joey did. The only thing is, on the first turn he made, of course way too fast, the cooler swung around, popped open as of course he didn't tie it closed and the fish went flying out into the middle of the intersection, coming apart and and that was where Joey left it, with the cooler still hanging from the back of his car. Those poor people that lived up the street, it stunk for days.

A much more responsible fisherman turned 70 last year and I designed his party favors. Bobby loves to fish and though he never caught one this big... he got a kick out of seeing himself in this shot.
I searched on line for pictures again, just searched for "fishermen" and chose the best picture. It's kind of hard to see but the cartoon fisherman is also Bobby's face. I made labels for the one-serving sized wine bottles for the adults and then did party bags filled with Swedish Fish for the kids. The party bags are another great idea and I've used them for many parties. You can use baggies, or go to a store like "Michaels", or a craft supply store and find whatever size bag you need. Look where they keep supplies for making your own chocolate. I make tent cards and fold them over the bag and staple it, you can use glue but the staples are easier and the kids are going to just rip open the bags anyway. Fill the bags with toys, candy, whatever is appropriate for the occasion.



Now I love to tell the stories of Joey driving me crazy and I laugh. To this day he tells me bogus fishy stories and I'm like, really?! I fall for it all the time. I'm gullible but he's really good at it. He is our family's and his friends best entertainment, all the kids in the family call him Uncle Dodo, a nickname from our niece Irene. His children have his sense of humor in different ways and they have given me so many belly laughs, laughing til I'm crying, as all my nieces and nephews have done at certain times but these 3 have Joey in them, especially his youngest.

Belly laughs, uncontrolled laughter, the wonderful feeling it gives me is still a part of my life. My friends and I don't see each other as often but when we do get together, there's always a moment where we are laughing like children. I try most days to go about my day with a smile inside, it feels good and can be infectious to those you meet.

In my life, I caught a fish THIS BIG!!!!