RAPALA LIP
Last word from the ladies
The challenges of giving and receiving gifts
S
O this is Christmas .... and what have we learnt? Not to let your fisherman other half buy you gifts, that’s what! I’ve been reading Rapala Lip for a couple of years now, ever since I started dating my darling love and ended up sitting bored while he was cleaning the boat or prepping the boat or checking the boat — or the bait or the lures or the lines or whatever! Invariably I found a copy of SKI-BOAT magazine lying around while I waited (impatiently) for him to be done. And as I have this pecular habit of flipping through magazines from the back instead of the front, I was pleasantly surprised to find an article specially for the ladies! After a while I was happy to let him get on with his stuff (for a short while) just so I could read the latest Rapala Lip. And here I am on the other side of the page, so to speak! The first year we were dating he invited me over to his home for dinner on Christmas Eve. We’d only met a couple of months before and I was hugely impressed with this man who could cook, because kitchen appliances and I are not close friends. Okay, so dinner was fish, not roast turkey or gammon, but it was really tasty. I wandered around the lounge while he finished prepping dinner and his Christmas tree in the corner caught my eye. I love Christmas, and top of my bucket list is going to the Christmas markets in Germany, but at the moment all those holiday dreams are disappearing into the hole he calls his boat. Anyway, back to that first Christmas ... True, the tree was plastic, not real, but I was surprised to find a bachelor who’d made an effort to bring some Christmas cheer into his home. From a distance I noticed how sparkly all the decorations were, and as I stepped closer was astounded to discover that, between the twinkling fairy lights, were a whole lot of metal shapes with sharp hooks on the end! Of course the hooks were ideal to “hang” these objects from the tree, but I was slightly perplexed.
82 • SKI-BOAT January/February 2018
“Honey, where did you get these tree decorations?” I asked. “Kingfisher has a brilliant selection,” he informed me.“And they’re multi-purpose spoons — after Christmas they’ll catch me plenty of fish!” Bear in mind I had no brothers, my father and uncles did not fish, and I get seasick going on a cruise, nevermind a ski-boat, so I had never been fishing and couldn’t understand how these shaped objects with hooks were “spoons”. I didn’t want to appear completely ignorant, though, so I let it pass and settled down to enjoy the dinner. I was spending Christmas Day with my family and he with his, so after dinner we sat down to exchange the gifts we’d bought for one another. My handsome boyfriend handed me two smallish boxes, each with a big red bow on it and I started to get excited. It was a bit early in our relationship to expect expensive jewellery, but perhaps he’d decided I was a keeper and he wanted to make sure I knew it. When I took off the bow and looked closer the paper was black and white with writing on it — a photocopied page out of SKI-BOAT magazine! That should have been the first clue that perhaps the gift was not going to be what I was expecting, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and tore it open to look inside. The first gift was a box of antiseasickness pills. “Okay, that’s sweet,” I thought, “he wants me to spend time with him on the boat and doesn’t want me feeling ill, so I guess that’s cute even if it’s not going to happen.” I was still excited about the other gift. Again the box was wrapped in a photocopied page of SKI-BOAT — I guess he couldn’t bear to actually tear out the pages and use those. As I started opening the box I saw something sparkly. “Yay! He knows how I love bling,” I thought to myself. And yes, indeed, it was a sparkly gift, but it looked like he had just taken two of his smaller decorations off the tree. I must have looked confused, because he excitedly explained that he’d had a
friend turn two spoons into earrings! “See, he removed the barbs and the hooks are nice and sharp so they’ll easily go through your pierced ears,” he clarified. “Thanks, they’re lovely,” I smiled, hastily closing the box and hiding the shiver that ran down my spine at the thought of walking around with those garish things attached to my ears! Perhaps my Rapala Lip was beginning to show because he looked worried. “Oh, here’s another one for you,” he gushed handing over a bigger gift. This one actually was wrapped in Christmas paper. I cautiously unwrapped it ... a seafood cookbook! “Oh, super, I’ll show my mum,” I told him. Perhaps I hadn’t made it clear enough I had no interest in cooking. Despite the underwhelming gifts I really did like him a lot and was prepared to overlook a few faults, so I eagerly handed over the items I’d lovingly picked out for him. The first was a lovely woollen scarf the same colour as his beautiful blue eyes. True, he’s a slops and shorts kind of guy, but I just loved the feel of the soft wool and the colour was gorgeous. He too seemed underwhelmed, but I thought for sure my next gift would be well received — his first drill and electric screwdriver set! I’d got a brilliant deal on the Black Friday sales. Once again he didn’t seem over excited. I couldn’t figue out why because I knew he didn’t already have one of those. I guess I’d never really seen him show much interest in DIY projects but still ... He and I stayed together, but all through the next year neither of us ever saw the other one use the gifts they’d been given. When December came around again I suggested we each draw up a list of what gifts we’d like, and make sure we only bought items that were on the list. That worked really well, and I even forgave him when he bought me a sparkly diamond ring that wasn’t on my prepared list!