Ian....Get A Grip!

We haven't heard much talk about Nemo since his frozen fillet was found in my freezer back in mid-September when I returned from les Îles de la Madeleine. Nemo had been cryogenically preserved by my west coast Godfatherly friends Sean and Lisa. There was no real mystery as to Nemo's demise (a mob hit is a mob hit), but there was a lingering question as to his still missing eye.

Mystery solved.

I searched casually for Nemo's eye when I returned from my windsurfing vacation. I half expected it to come pouring out of my cereal or my coffee grinds, or to show up magically in a dessert. All very mainstream debuts. All of my searching was fruitless, not that I was looking for fruit. I did find a golden delicious apple in the crisper which I heartily enjoyed though. I forgot that I put it there in June. June, 2012.

My friends Lisa and Sean are delightfully devious. Bad apples who are deliciously golden on the outside but rotten to the core inside, but in a good way (see golden delicious 2012). Playful, and then some. They are basically scoundrels with good hearts, and equally life-pumping imaginations. At one point, in the body of an e-mail message, Lisa dropped what I thought was a hint as to the whereabouts of the missing eyeball. Here's what she said in a e-mail sent on September 30:

Oh and about plugging the hole with real Nemo's eye, uuuhhhm no we can't. Because, YOU've got the eye my friend. Well actually, apparently you don't totally have a grip on it. Or maybe you do kind of. My advice? Oh forget it."

Clearly Lisa was dropping a hint. The key word, I thought, was 'grip'. Somehow Nemo's eye was being gripped by something. Lisa's cryptic message had good grip on my imagination and my fragile sense of sleuthworthiness. I pondered her words. What do I own that grips things or people? Certainly not my blog, though if you're still reading at this point (which clearly you are) then I may wield some mildly gripping influence, at least on my readership of three. 

I scoured my house for 'things that gripped': garlic press, tongs, Scotch tape, underwear (ewww). I came up one eye short of a Cyclops, or two is short of iris. Nothing. Nada. Zilch and zippo. I checked the boathouse where I keep an award winning collection of pliers. Again, zero. Nuthin'. Ruthin'. I gave up.

October 24 was a day to remember, for more than one reason. It happened to be the best windsurfing day I'd ever had on Grand Lake. After windsurfing Crazy Dave and Blain dropped by my place for wine and cheese. And you thought they were beer guzzling Doritos eaters. Beer guzzling? Yes. Doritos? I don't think so. Crazy Dave has a fondness for Covered Bridge potato chips, though I've never seen him eat more than a single large bag himself. I digress.

Blain had never been to my place before. Just before he left I showed him the boathouse (man cave), a mandatory stop on all tours. As I was showing Blain around, I heard Dave say very innocently "hey, is that Nemo's eye?"

You could have heard a pin drop at that point. Wedged firmly into the grip of my vise was Nemo's eyeball. Mystery solved! It is with a sad heart that I acknowledge that I was outsmarted by Sean and Lisa. I must have walked by that vise a dozen times since mid-September. Third eye blind, as they say. 

For the moment the score stands at Lisa/Sean: 1, Ian:0. That will change.