The Bethany
From Jenne and C.E. is The Unicorn Challenge for March 22, 2024.
The challenge: one picture and a story up to 250 words.
This snapshort sails in at 250 words.
The Bethany
You can’t see it from here, but I’m on the right side of the photo, about three slips back. Not me, but my beauty, lit up like all the others in the marina and looking like we’re all ready for the Schooner Wharf Boat Parade. Minus the parade.
She’s nothing tremendously fancy, just a simple monohull. Forty-five feet, an 85 HP Volvo Penta engine, three cabins and two heads, one with a hot and cold-water shower. Full galley with a built-in microwave and coffee maker. A bit unnecessary, the coffee maker, since I don’t drink coffee, but it was part of the package. A portable solar panel and emergency raft – just in case – are tucked away under the cockpit table. I could go on and on, but I don’t want to start sounding like the friends who invite you over for coffee and cake and then proceed to spend two hours showing you their vacation photos. She’s a thing of beauty if I say so myself. I’m immensely proud of her and I’ll leave it at that.
She’s named The Bethany. Named after my wife. I thought it was the least I could do since it was the money I received from the life insurance policy my sweetheart had maintained for sixteen years and three months that bought her. Bethany – the real Bethany, not The Bethany – well, they never found her and I’m not one to kiss and tell. Let’s just say she’s here and there and everywhere.
Te quiro.
Michael B. Fishman
Michaelsfishbowl 
lol
(Don’t tell anyone, but I started out buying into the ‘the beauty of boats tour’… ok, can blame a Reader for that. Then, with the source of the name of the boat… I would say ‘hook-line-and-sinker but that’d be a pun on the level we expect from Doug or Keith… but then, the very last line. Boom! (And, the guilt-by-association last laugh line. Nicely done, yo, nicely done)
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Thank you, Clark!
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How your ‘hero’ obtained his boat gave me a sinking feeling.
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Thanks, Doug. And I think it’s maybe a-boat time you were feeling better?
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All this time and I didn’t know you were Canadian. 🙂
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Ah, the old ‘let’s spread her ashes’ trick…😆
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It’s tried and true! I saw this guy as more the chop and dump type so I think she’s spread out all over the place.
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haha! Yeah, I think you are right….😮😬
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Food for the fishes, eh? Scattered from a 12-foot aluminum-hulled outboard, since the insurance check hadn’t yet cleared…
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You’re good, Liz. 😆
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😆🐒 Sometimes. And sometimes not!
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Ooh, ‘There’s been a murder!’ (The oft-repeated sentence from a Scottish police series ‘Taggart’. (Has to be pronounced ‘Therre’s been a murrdur’.)
I was completely fooled by the gentle beginning – until I got to ‘insurance policy’.
Nicely set up and delivered, Michael.
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Thanks Jenne! I love trying to talk with an accent so I’m working on ‘Therre’s been a murrdur’, but I’m not ever very good…
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I guess The Bethany is more fun than the real Bethany ever was!
Nice one, Michael.
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Thanks C.E.! I think he did love the real Bethany, but what guy doesn’t want a boat?
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😆😆😂
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That eloquent description of The Bethany lulled me into a romantic, dreamy place. Then your magnificent curveball denouement. I think I’m falling for you, Fishman.
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Thanks Nancy! (Good thing no one can see me blush😳)
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😉
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Yes, you can tell he’s ‘immensely proud of her’, and I’d say he’s pretty proud of himself, too, the cad. Such a cold-hearted boatie. Got me with that ending.
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