Last weekend, I traveled with my parents and brother to go visit extended family. As always, it was a fun visit, and during this family trip, my father decided to drive from Winston-Salem to Pilot Mountain to take photographs at sunrise. He ended up getting some pretty cool pictures:

(If you want to see more awesome pictures by him you can go to http://www.stevemurphyphotography.com/)

Anyway, while he was at Pilot Mountain taking pictures, there was another photographer up there. They got to talking, and it turns out this photographer also liked fly fishing like my father. Talk about a match made in heaven. Towards the end of their bromancing, this other photographer told my dad that he doesn't really fish anymore, and had a great fishing fly that "sinks right to the bottom" of the water and was the best at catching fish. My dad, of course, was intrigued, and allowed this kind photographer to give him the fishing fly.

When he got back to Winston-Salem, he told the story once on the way to breakfast, again at breakfast, and then again when we got back from breakfast. He was very excited about his new fishing fly and newfound acquaintance.

Later that afternoon, I was eating lunch in my grandparents' kitchen and I heard yelling that sounded a little bit like this:

"Wait, where are you going?"

"No, don't flush it!"

*toilet flushes*

"No, my fly!"

I then heard my mom start laughing and repeatedly yelling, "I'm so sorry!"

My grandparents left to investigate and it turned out, my mom mistook my dad's brand new fishing fly for a real bug, and flushed it. My dad came into the living room, looking very sad, and recapped the story. Apparently, he took the fly out of his bag and threw it on the bed. He then said "What would your mom do if she thought this was real?" My mom then picked it up with a paper towel and walked towards the bathroom. My dad thought she was kidding, and was simply pretending to act like her mother. Until he heard the toilet flush and realized, no, my mom was not kidding. Because she thought my dad had thrown an actual dead bug at her, and failed to notice the hook sticking out from it.

As my dad recounted the heartbreaking story, my brother and I both lost it and started laughing to the point of tears. As if the story wasn't funny enough, my dad then spent the rest of the afternoon being petty. My grandparents pointed out how upset he looked, and he responded "Well, I'm not happy about it." Anytime anyone mentioned anything, even if it was not about the incident, he would then say "Well, I would probably be that happy if I still had my fishing fly," or "This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me," and basically refused to let it go.

Although my mom found the situation humorous, she still offered to buy my dad a new fishing fly. He said that it "wouldn't be the same," and wanted "that one." I now know where my brother and I get our pettiness.

It has been a week, but if you mention the incident to my dad he says "I just can't believe she flushed it," and starts to tell the story all over again. Even though he now laughs when he tells it, you can still see the pain in his eyes.

Pictured below is the fishing fly that has brought out so much pettiness. After a quick online search, the most expensive I've seen it listed as is $1.95.