Liars Poker

After sailing on Wednesday evening we went to our usual inn for beer and pizza. I sat in the middle of a long table and could hear snatches of conversation from left and right.

So what's happened to the curmudgeon? Has he really left the club?

Dunno. But I still play poker with him once a week. He's just as much a curmudgeon at poker as he was at the sailing club. He's threatened to leave that group too over five bucks. Seems like five bucks is his hot button.

Yeah, I'm crewing on an E-Scow on Sunday morning. The guy who owns it has an ice-boat too. He and his brother work on it every Tuesday evening. That thing can go 100mph.

When I lived in Aruba we used to sail our Sunfish over to Venezuela 35 miles away once a year. Would hang out with the fisherman on the beach and then sail back the next day.

He bought a seven-sided poker table for one of the group for his birthday and then expected the rest of us to chip in. Some of the other guys thought it was too much and that's what got the curmudgeon all riled up.

Yeah - you sit inside this totally enclosed cockpit so it can be 20 degrees below freezing outside and even at 100 mph you don't need to wear much to keep warm. The cockpit is actually in front of the mast.

We got huge swells and big winds on the cruise to Venezuela every year. Never been so fast in a Sunfish. We used to troll for fish on the way too.

What? How could you see the sail to trim the sheet if you were in front of the mast?

What? How can you fish from a Sunfish in those conditions?

You just trim in all the way. The apparent wind is always right on the nose. This baby is 45 ft long and 35 ft wide. That's why it goes so fast.

You put a chunk of 2 by 4 in your cockpit and have a reel of line. You tie a spoon on the end of the line and trail it out behind you. Once you feel your boat going sideways you know you've got a bite so you reel it in.

I hate that guy. We take it in turn to choose what type of poker to play. He has this weird variation where you split the pot between low and high hands. So I threaten that if he chooses that game I will choose the game where the hand with the lowest spade loses.

How can that be? If the apparent wind were straight ahead it would mean you were sailing dead upwind.

I like this mushroom pizza. Someone should write an article for the club newsletter comparing the dietary benefits of mushroom and pepperoni. What do mushrooms have in them anyway?

So then you reel in the barracuda and you kill it by hitting it on the head with the 2 by 4.

Has anybody seen Flash? I wonder how he's doing.

Aren't mushrooms mainly water?

But if you had a dead fish in your boat for several hours wasn't it high by the time you got to Venezuela?

He's out of action. Needs rotator cuff surgery.

I heard they're good for your prostate. Pepperoni is very high in sodium and salt.

One year a guy hooked a 200 lb sailfish and it pulled him all the way back to Aruba. We never saw him again.

So once you're heading at 100 mph towards the dam how do you stop?

Rotator cuff tear? How did he get that? Too much pumping?

They are high in selenium or something like that.

I miss the curmudgeon. Do you remember how he always came into the windward mark on the port tack layline and fouled several boats at the mark in every race and then sailed off as if nothing had happened.

You old guys and your prostates.

He claimed he was deaf.

Just let go of everything.

Yeah, selective deafness. But he does play poker wearing a hat with ear flaps on so he can hear better. And he keeps all his chips in a nail apron below the table so nobody can see how many he has.

I think my buddies are the biggest liars I have ever known.
I never know when to believe them.
I need some good tall tales for next week.
Help!