How to Make God Smile

For the last few years I have been getting together with a group of buddies and fishing on a river in Oregon. It is always fun and this year was no exception. Due to health problems in our group -- we are all over 50 these days, there were some changes in the cast, but everything was excellent.

As usual my favorite moment was one that could never have been planned, it just happened. We had caught a nice fish and wanted some pictures to torture one of the group who could not attend this year. We staged ourselves with the perfect background and got ready to go. It was a great fish, colored up with bright reds and silver, a hook jaw and strong as a bull. We made fun of the missing member and reveled in our plans to take not just one but multiple pictures with this monster fish. One on the bank, then one in the boat, maybe one in the water with waders on. We had a story all cooked up about how even though the fish all looked alike they were in fact all different. We had just gotten into a group of nice fish that maybe looked similar. So up to the front of the boat we went for our first shot. And then this happened. That fish is living free as I write this, he's probably still laughing at the old guys who have grip the strength of a little girl.

There is a moral to the story: “If you want to make God smile just tell him your plans.”