Frozen For The Ages

"We went yesterday. They're not biting. All we catch are those stupid perch."

"Maybe today the bluegills are biting," I suggested.

"Why don't you go find out and then come back and get us?" Jake said.

I wisely abstained from a long and hopeless lecture on "earning" the fish.

"O.K.," I said. "No fishing. But let's go outside and do something."

"What?"

"You guys think of something."

"SNOWMOBILING!" they shouted in chorus.

For the tenth time I explained that Grandpa thought the glare ice was too hard on snowmobile runners and didn't want to run the machines—except to visit the Bluegill Hole, of course—until we got snow. Despite the obvious bribe, the Bluegill Hole still didn't appeal to them.

"Think of something else," I said.