Trout's Junction

Trout's Junction

Onamia, MN

Reviewed April 15th, 2005

Onamia is the last stop before you hit the south end of Mille Lacs Lake. While it is mostly human beings who go fishing for fish, sometimes fish like to go fishing too. Just as you'd expect, Trout's Junction is a place where all the little trouts can go to get all the supplies they need before they go on their big fishing expeditions on legendary Mille Lacs. Here, Lake Trouts, Splake Trouts and a few Brown and Rainbow Trouts come to get licenses, equipment and the special boats they need in order to have a successful fishing adventure. Particularly boats. Without the big bubble that holds in water, the trouts could not hang out up at the surface of the lake and drink Coors and wear baseball hats and trade knowing, "Oooooh yaaaah, you betchas" with the other Minnesota fisherpeople of Scandinavian descent. The Bubble Boat was designed and built by the trouts, crafty 'lill fishes that they are. And while trouts may drink beer and get a little floppy from time to time, they never engage in any disruptive, wild or immoral behavior - which makes the appearance of condom machines in the bathroom at Trout's Junction all the more weird. "It ain't a condom machine. It's a 'health convenience center.' Says so on the sign, it does yah," said a fishy tending counter when I asked. Well, what do trouts or any other fishes for that matter, need with condoms? "We use 'em like little wet suits, you see. We wear 'em for back up if the water bubble breaks on our bubble boats. It's like a life preserver thing-a-ma-thingy, see now yah." Why couldn't fishes just jump in the water if their water bubble breaks? I mean, isn't the lake their natural environment type thing? "Yah well, it gets a little bit chilly yah know," said the clerk. "A little bit chilly down there," he repeated, like I couldn't hear him or something. And what exactly do trout fishes fish for? "Well, each other mostly. We kinda take turns getting caught and then we throw each other back, you know. Sometimes you get a boot or something but yah, its mostly just us that we fish for. I mean, yah know it is called fishing after all now see?" Uh huh.

The bathroom was little and the condom machine...er, 'health convenience center' was the nicest thing about it. But who really cares anyway? It is meant for fishes, not people. "Yah, they come up through the crapper sometimes they do, yah, yah," said the clerk impatiently. "Not so bad down there, not so bad really. Just a bit chilly you understand?"

- Justin Teerlinck

RESTROOM RATING: 4
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