smiles, jesus, flares, and of course, fish

More dock stories. Because they're the best I've got this time of year.

One of our favorite captains down at the dock was unloading some fish, and sayin' goodbye to his passengers, when one of them said, "Smile!" while she held up her camera for a quick snap. The Cap'n smiled bigger and responded, "I'm always smilin', except when I'm not." This certain captain is a riot. He tells his clients, "Yeah, I might be an asshole, but I'm a damn, good fisherman," before and after each trip. The man holds his tongue for no one.

Speaking of watching language and such... Last week, a Christian tourship was in town. After an obvious boat load of Texas Jesus-Freaks offloaded from a boat, I blurted out in a very serious, flamboyant tone, "God Bless!"
Leah spun around and looked at me as if I had just announced that I was pregnant, and said, "WHAT!?" -I guess I'm just not the religious type, but the tourists didn't know any better.
As they continued to walk away, blessed and all, I continued, "May the Lord be with you."
Leah corrected me though. I guess that's from Star Wars, not Jesus. Woops.

In other news, I observed Drunk Jeff wearing flares.

An older couple approached us on the dock wishing to see a white king salmon. They inquired about our jobs and thought it to be especially humorous that we worked at "Fresh Fish" as opposed to "Old Fish." Yeah, not funny.
The man drilling us for information about fish kept doing a distracting cough-sniffle. After every couple words he'd force out this abnoxious stream of air, and then suck a big gulp of air back in through his noise. The couple was very concerned and interested in seeing a white king. They wanted to know where and how they could see/buy one and everything there was to know. I didn't know what to tell them...
"Well, they are a little more rare... A delicacy in some restaurants... Higher fat content... Yeah, exciting..."
They just couldn't let go of the idea of an albino king salmon. But finally, we shoved them aside, and picked up the tote of kings the man had been coughing over. Upon returning to the plant to weigh the fish, we realized that the very fish sitting, literally, right beneath the man's nose, was indeed, a white king salmon.