Megyn

Miss Transue

English

27 October 2011

Cut the Line

            Splash! Splash! Is that not the biggest bass you have ever hooked? Wait you have got this gorgeous girl, who you have had a crush on for as long as you can remember, sitting in the front of your canoe on the way to the fair, with you! Do you reel in this fish, or go for the girl? I read the story “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant.” The narrator made the wrong decision by cutting the line and going to Sheila.

            The narrator should have chosen the fish and not Sheila. One reason is Sheila Mant is a snob. When the narrator went to pick up Sheila she did not help paddle the entire way to the fair! Another thing is she talks about herself the whole time. She tells him how she wants to go to college somewhere she can ski, and that she was “thinking of getting my hair styled, more swept back? I mean, Ann-Margret? Like hers, only shorter” (Wetherell, 8).

            Nevertheless some people say that Sheila was nice to the narrator because she went to the fair with him, and she also danced with him. However Sheila only danced with him twice. If she were a good date she would have danced with him the whole time. Not only that, but she also neglected to go home with her date. Instead she went home in Eric Caswell’s corvette.

            Thus Sheila was the wrong choice; however the bass was the right choice. Sheila was rude to the narrator. The narrator was trying to show off his knowledge of fishing and she boldly said to him that fishing was stupid. Not to mention; when is he ever going to catch a bass that big ever again? After he hooked the fish he knew three things about it, “One that, it was a bass. Two, that it was a big bass. Three that it was the biggest bass I had ever hooked” (Wetherell, 7). Even after she left him to go home by himself at the fair, Sheila was not nice to him. Because even after she had rudely told him that fishing was dumb she told him, “you’re a funny kid, you know that” (Wetherell, 10). However; by funny she does not mean his jokes are funny. By funny she means weird.

            In conclusion, Sheila Mant was the wrong choice; however the fish was the right choice. As an avid reader I can justify me points with evidence from the text. In this situation would you choose the biggest fish ever, or the gorgeous girl?

 

Works Cited