Shark Week 2013 - Why We Should Root For The Sharks

The first week of August usually means three things - 1) Summer is winding down 2) The Red Sox are about to go into meltdown mode and 3) Shark Week!!!!!! Contrary to popular belief, the format for Shark Week doesn't change year to year, and you basically get the same regurgitated shark drivel year after year. But it's always entertaining, and never fails to disappoint. It's kind of like American Idol auditions - fun watching the losers for the first few episodes, and then you get bored and want to watch something else. Same deal with Shark Week. This post aims to change your perceptions going into Shark Week, one in which you root FOR the sharks as they strike/eat/maim fellow human beings.

I'm a horror movie fan. My wife refers to them as 'sick fuck' movies. I can only watch them after 10:00 when she heads to bed early. Now I'm not one of those people who sees the movie and then gets off on people getting murdered to satisfy some sick fetish. I just like seeing people get what they deserve. Usually the formula is a bunch of teenage jerks go out cruisin’, take a wrong turn, piss off some locals, or flat out planned going to some isolated rustic house that their uncle’s friend owns. Shark Week is not entirely different, as usually the folks who get their body parts bitten off could have been in a safer situation. I take the horror movie approach with shark attacks – the people get what they deserve. Every time, unless it’s a little kid, in which I feel horrible. Here’s a list of the folks that deserve to have a haunch bitten off by a Great White. Feel free to tell me if I left anyone off the list.

Shark Bait #1 - The Surfer

“What’s up duuuuuuude? Just vibin’ bro. Calm seas today, brah. Mad chill waves man, just ridin’ the barrels.” Ahhh the life of a surfer. To have no mortgage, student loans, accountability, or stress. The surfer obviously majored in communications or marine biology in college. They wanted to escape their meddling parents on the east coast and moved to California or Hawaii. Life is peaceful and free of the hustle bustle of Corporate America. Hey, God bless you if you can achieve that inner zen. I’m not knocking you if you can find happiness through the vessel of riding waves the rest of your life. To each his own. Except one problem. Fahkin’ shahhhhks live in that watahhhh. You basically share an office building with predators. I share an office building with sexual predators. Ok maybe surfers have it worse.

But seriously, if you choose to ride waves for a living and ‘get ‘pitted’ and happen to infringe upon the shark’s territory, you deserve to lose a limb or two. The rest of us are sweating bullets wondering when we’re going to get laid off, and you are wearing friggin’ body suits, catching air, and flirting with rejects from ‘The Hills’. You choose to surf during dusk/dawn when sharks are primarily doing their feeding. And you wonder why you're in a world of hurt. I hope a shark bites your dick off. I don’t want to see some wonky-toothed Tiny Tim look-a-like from Australia regaling me with harrowing tales of watching his board get bit in half and getting his meaty guts ripped out. You brought it on yourself for not studying hard in school.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJdF8DJ70Dc

Suggested Shark Attack – 1 to 2 limbs


Shark Bait #2 – Twilight Swimmers

Twilight swimmers are just too cocky for their own good. Swimming is done during the day, everybody knows that. Haven’t you seen Jaws 2? I don’t know what sharks are up to at night, but they don’t sleep and your body parts flopping around in the water and waking all the fish up sure as hell doesn’t help anything. Is it Mission: Critical to swim at night in shark infested waters? Can’t you just swim at your hotel’s pool? Or pull a ‘Girl Next Door’ and skinny-dip in your principal’s pool. But swimming in the ocean at night when lifeguards are off duty? Who’s going to save you, Jason Vorhees? He sticks to lakes, not large bodies of water. You’re on your own, and you are being careless. Once again, you deserve to have your torso float to the shore and get comingled with the flotsam/jetsam/seaweed that comes in with the tide. Always make sure you have other sober people around you. Strength in numbers counts for something. I think. But maybe not. Like Honey Badger, sharks don’t give a fuck.

Suggested Shark Attack – 1 leg eaten

Shark Bait #3 -  Victims that don’t learn their lesson


You all heard about the infamous surfer Bethany Hamilton, who got her arm bitten off by a tiger shark in 2003. Well, as awful as that was, she decided to go BACK into the surfing world, as if to show the sharks that they couldn’t derail her career. But they did. They bit her arm off and her balance isn’t as good. If a colleague bit my arm off, I would probably find work elsewhere in a completely different industry. This bitch went back into surfing competitions. Fool of a Took (ok sorry for the LOTR reference). Why don’t people learn their lessons? I know it’s hip and trendy to confront your fears head on, but if I were to confront a shark that bit my fucking arm off, I would basically admit defeat, bow before them, and throw some chum/minnows at them. They ate a part of my body. I want nothing to do with them or their ilk for the rest of my life, thank you very much. Why do people insist on confronting their victimizer? Do something else. Strip. Go into teaching or become a paralegal. Get an office job. The wayward seas are not for you, cause you tend to lose limbs. We just finished watching some recent shark attack sob stories, and you hear these assholes talk about ‘Ohhh I respect the ocean and especially the sharks. I’m grateful that they spared my family member cause they could have eaten her whole.’ Shut up, you doofus. It’s damn oversized fish with a small brain. It doesn’t have the same feelings that you do. It doesn’t even know what ‘respect’ is. We always treat animals and fish in human terms. They’re not human, that’s why we are at the top of the food chain. People always get shocked when dogs/chimps/snakes rebel and turn on their owners. Get your head out of your ass and exert some control. Stay out of a shark’s wheelhouse. They only warn you once. And by ‘warn’ I mean only bite your arm off.

Suggested Shark Attack – complete consumption. No remains. (except for a chewed up private part floating in the water).


Shark Bait #4 – Dummy Tourists

More often than not, we hear about a careless tourist from China or some dunderheaded parent going out too far to get a errant frisbee that their kid threw. They always need to get the latest photo of a high wave, they always need to lean a little too far over the side of the boat to get a picture of a slimy porpoise, or take a stupid selfie with their hair blowing in the wind while the boat is in motion. They don't perform a cursory due diligence of where they are vacationing, and therefore test Poseidon's patience when they cluelessly swim in an inappropriate shark-infested area. In a perfect world, brainless tourists all go on the same boat and get fed to a school of sharks and a series of random feet and cameras with neckstraps wash up on shore, with an occasional severed head with a dumb/shocked look on its face.

Suggested Shark Attack - nothing but human torso remaining. Just a headless/limbless carcass with nipple rings and a gargoyle tattoo on its back.

Shark Bait #5 – ‘One More Dip Donna’

Everyone just had a great day swimming and playing at the beach and just as everyone is packed up to go home there is always one numskull who has to pipe up “hey guys, I’m just going to hop in for one last dip.” No you’re not. You’re hopping in to your DEATH. Ronald the Shark is just waiting to chew up your guts like gamey meat. Get out of the damn water and go home while you’re still ahead (and intact). Don’t give me this foolish “one last dip” game and blame me when your vagina gets munched off. Unless you want your friends to be playing with your lanky bones as they wash up on shore, get your ass off the beach at the time you planned and don’t look back.

Suggested Shark Attack – don’t care how, but there needs to be nothing but lanky bones remaining. Donna chose poorly.

So those are the folks to look out for during Shark Week. Don't feel bad when they die - they probably deserved it. The sharks own the seas. Humans in swim trunks don't. Remember that, you knuckleheads.