(I told this story last year at a story telling event about commercial fishing. I decided to publish it on my blog.)

I want to tell you a story about a fisherman with dry feet.

My fishing day usually begins with a phone call or text at some stupidly early hour that makes sense on the drag but is soul crushing in town. Have a perfunctory phone call with my beloved that is more shopping list than anything. There are checks at the cannery (yay!) so I can pay bills (boo) and by the way here is a giant list of what he needs me to deliver to the tender so he can stay out where the fish are biting.

I would rather be a deckhand than this glamorous fisherman’s wife/errand girl but the last time I landed a fish was 2012. I was pretty pregnant with my first kid then. I went out for the second king opener after my husband went through 4 deckhands. I was the last (best) resort. I don’t remember much from that trip except for when I got stuck in the hatch to our hold. The ladder slipped out from under me and I was dangling, wet, pregnant, and scared 6 feet off the bottom of our hold in light seas. My husband remembers I couldn’t land fish because I couldn’t bend over the rail. My bump was in the way.

My role now is to deal with everything that does not include pulling fish over the rails and pitching to a tender. This behind-the-scenes part of fishing is so, so critical but it involves paperwork and dry feet so it’s not romantic. At. All.

Most of my dealing with it involves two wonderful blonde tots that are 3 and 5. Every errand requires in/out of carseats for two. My kids are past that delightful “meatbag” stage where you strap them to your torso and go. So keep that in mind while I take you through my most recent gauntlet.

So, I hope that these calls come when I have a day off from my actual, full-time with benefits job so I don’t have to miss work to run our business. So I go with my two kids in tow and promises of some garbage treat that I swore I would never give my kids. First, to the grocery store. Neither kid is content to just sit in the cart anymore or if they are they want the same spot and end up fighting . So I find that Lakeside where they can have their own carts works best but Lakeside doesn’t always have everything I need for the boat so I’m off to Seamart. We get in the door and I threaten them in that low-voiced mom way I didn’t ever think I would be doing either. (such compliant kids I would have). We stop in the bulk section. I hope that I’ve beat the locusts who come off the seine boats and buy all of the good stuff. My schedule is not my own. I serve a 23 pound master who refuses to wear pants at inconvenient times.

So I do my best to get groceries, into a cart, without some little blonde child licking something. I see that oreos are on sale and I know that something as small as a cookie can improve morale. So I buy 2 bags. How much shelf-stable milk to get? I don’t really want to have to think at the store but I do the complicated math of calculating how much to buy/send. How much longer will this bite last? What is the storage situation like on the boat right now? Oh my gosh I’m spending $60 in shelf-stable milk. KILL ME.

I get to the front. Get the groceries boxed while my kids fight over the horse magnet at the checkout. I’m out the door almost to the car when I remember that the deck hand needs smokes. I pull out my list where I’ve written the brand and model of whatever the crew is smoking these days. I walk to the counter while my kids pound the gumball machine to show the person that I need a carton of Marlboro longboys or Camel Crispies or whatever. More than $100 and several idle threats later and we are in the car. The boxes don’t really fit well in the back of my rusty Toyota, especially on the pile of scooters and live vests in permanent residence.

But I was really good at tetris so it all fits and we head out to Murray Pacific where I can’t spend less than $300. I shove the kids back into the car and add the gear to the boxes of groceries.

Errands have to be timed so I can get home before the witching hour (if you don’t have kids this is the time between good behavior and pre-nap meltdown it’s about 11:30 in my world) By now it’s 11:15 and I am hoping my kids don’t crash too hard before I finish my chores. I park in front of SPC and find a kind soul to help me schlep boxes marked F/V (beeneatingMacandCheesefor3daysstraight) C/O (outgoingtender). The kids don’t run away at the cannery. It’s too loud, with too many weird smells, and I have absolutely told them about people losing fingers when they didn’t listen to their mom.

1 task done.

Then upstairs to the office to get the checks from one of the very nice women who work there. Sometimes there is candy. There has been candy often enough that my kids expect it. There are tantrums on the floor if there isn’t any. I dangle the McDonald’s carrot and the behavior gets good enough that I don’t have to carry two screaming kids out of the building.

Then the bank where I can smell the finish lines. I should just leave the kids in the car but I don’t because of mom guilt. We walk in, deposit checks, and get out with minimum fuss.

Then McDonalds then home and I’m spent and it’s 11:45 and it’s my “day off” and I still have to file some insurance paperwork and deal with sales tax and figure out how we are going to buy gear this year.

And Husband is calling me looking for a weather forecast. Me, with my dry feet and him with his wet feet, and my kids with my sticky French fry hands. Our business. We are fishing family.