Safe, My Ass

More people die yearly in car crashes than in shark attacks, and that absolutely does not make me feel better.

I let my kids take surfing lessons one summer in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and the instructor assured us that there would be noooooooooo sharks, yet it turns out that Brevard County has the second highest rate of shark chomps on Florida’s Atlantic coast. Yay. Such a good parent I am to serve up my children in a seafood buffet.

Honestly, whether a slimy, swimming thing has freakish rows of palm-sized razory teeth or not is hardly the issue. Don’t you think it is a tad coincidental that there is salt in the fricking ocean so that you cough and gag it up during the inevitable gasping that occurs right after a devious tidal wave opens a can of whoop-ass on you, and then its in-bred cousin, the current, drags you down so that your eyes widen to the size of Humvee tires, which just makes the brine in them that much more depraved? If humans were supposed to frolic in water, it would not be murky and contain living carnivores who mistake our jerky attempts to stay above the surface for the dying throes of seals. What the hell, the simple selachian brain stem muses. The poor thing is dying anyway, so I might as well not let it go to waste. Chomp.

If we were meant to go in the ocean, it would be clear and chlorinated and vacuumed each morning by some guy name Julio. And fish free. Just a couple of months ago, scientists noted in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico the largest gathering of whale sharks ever recorded. Approximately 420 gnashers congregated in one spot, each one bringing its 3000 teeth to the party, which is 1,260,000 more teeth than I like to have near my bare legs, and don’t even bother to argue that whale sharks feed on plankton and that their teeth are teeny. I know all about mob mentality, and 400-plus sharks is a fucking mob if I ever saw one. A million tiny teeth can do a lot of gnawing. 

Besides. If I were in the ocean and realized 400 sharks had swung by for a visit, I would have a stroke and drown. My body, which absolutely resembles that favorite shark crudité, the sea lion, would then twirl lifelessly into the gaping maws where I would provide snack breaks for the throng and its ancestors for decades. That is why the only murky water in which you will ever find my ass is the bath. On the slim chance that there is something alive in there with me, at least I'm not on its dinner menu. I have enough to worry about with having to make sure I'm fucking tasty.