Shark Week

It has arrived! One of my favorite weeks of the year. Right up there with Capital One Bowl week, and the first round of the NCAA tourney. Shark week comes but once a year, but is looked forward to year round. I’m talking about the Discovery Channels award winning shark week. When all the prime time, and some of the regular programming is all about sharks, shark attacks, and the inbread hicks they try to eat. Every year they throw in some quality new shark programming, mixed in with shark shows I’ve seen like 9 times. They still hook me, every time. If you,re like me, you spend 58 minutes waiting for the smelly australian/british/canadian dude to get eaten by a shark, right on camera, and then are dissapointed when he escapes, and then you do the same when they re-run the program. Of course, the Discovery Channel does the world a great dis-service. They try and tell us that sharks have more to fear from us, than we do of them, that you are unlikely to be attacked, and that they are “endangered”. This is all lies, and I thought I’d take a minute to debunk these myth’s. No matter what the Mythbusters, the dirty Jobs guy, or any of the other Discovery Lackies tell you, sharks will try and eat you. If they haven’t  yet, it’s because they haven’t had enough chances. I’m no marine biologist, but I do go to the ocean every few years, and I shower, which makes me better than a marine biologist hippie any day. Plus, In High School, I made fun of both the Marine recruiter guy, and my biology teacher. I think my credentials speak for themself. So here are some truth’s about sharks, that will help you do all the cool things in the water, that we as the supreme beings of the planet should be able to do without fear of having our weiners bitten off.

You may be saying to yourself, “this asshole has never even seen a shark”. First, you are wrong. I have not only seen every shark week since I was like 12, but I’ve seen a bunch at the aquarium, and I have also survived a shark attack. I was at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, when they had a great white shark in captivity. I said all along, “that fuckers gonna eat those other fish”. I was right. I just saw a program last night about this shark, and they had to let him go, because he/she ate some other fish, including other sharks. Who could blame it, they looked delicious. If this shark wasn’t “dangerous”, then why was there one guy in a shark suit washing the inside of the tank, and another guy with a spear? As mentioned,  I am a shark attack survivor. Here is my story. It was July 2005, in the shark attack capital of the world. Myrtle beach South Carolina. Every year thousand of visitors flock to this part of the world. Somewhere between zero and 10,000 of them are eaten by sharks. I was almost one of them. Lucky for me, I have cat like reflexes, and was able to knock some small children into harms way, between the shark and myself. I was wading out, the next wave was to be the first one to get my balls wet, thus making me acclimated to the water. As I turned to minimalize the shrinkage, I saw the two fins just inches away from me. they were only a couple feet apart, meaning the shark was like 3 or 4 feet long. I hauled ass. i made it to the shore before the previous wave had gotten there. Had an NFL scout been there with a stopwatch, I would have made millions, and then been in the same conversation as David Klingler, Todd marinovich, and Mark McQuire’s brother, as the worst draft picks ever. I never yelled shark, or tryed to save anyone else. Like i said, I hauled ass. It’s every man for himself. He may not have been able to eat me in one sitting, but he could have taken a few decent bites out of me, thus making me embarrassed to wear shorts. As a supple mid twenty something white boy, I clearly looked delicious. besides, big sharks don’t get big by dieting. The good news is I never got eaten, and I did create a mass panic. As far as you could see in either direction, the water was empty, crowds lined up at the edge of the beach, looking for the shark. he swam by a few more times, so other people actually saw him as well. I can’t help but think he was in cahoots with the playboy stealing black bear who attacked me when I was 7. Later that afternoon, since nobody could swim, I was hanging at the bar accross the street. I overheard the lifegaurds making fun of “the fat white kid’ who ran away from the baby shark. Well I got news for them. I’m still here, and when they sit in that gay chair, with their gay red shorts on, everyone, including the sharks can see their balls.

First, sharks should not be “protected”. There’s no liberal douche sharks trying to convince the other sharks not to eat you, so don’t try and convince me to save them. They are not endangered. There’s 52 weeks in a year. Only one is shark week, but yet we have no problem filling an entire slate of episodes with shark footage. If they were “endangered” there’d be at least one show during shark week, of guys just looking for sharks, finally saying “damn, theres no sharks here” and giving up. They always show up, just give them time. Plus, sharks and humans are in competition for the same two things. Chicks and bikini’s, and peel and eat shrimp. We have the Sun Tan oil, and the Cocktail sauce. Advantage us.

They also say, the odds are against you getting eaten by a shark. This is also wrong. You can only get eaten once, so nobody can apologize for giving you bad info, if you do. If you are white, your odds go way up. You never see anybody but white people getting attacked on the shows during shark week. There is the one show about the brazilian people who all got attacked, but some brazilian people are white, and they all smell like dead fish. If you are white, and in the ocean, sooner or later it’s gonna happen.

They also say “we don’t have sharks here”. Wrong. Theres a good chance theres a store selling shark tooth necklaces within a couple hundred yards. Those teeth had to come from somewhere, and this time it isn’t china.

They say, there is no “sensible” reason to pack heat while swimming in the ocean. Carrying a gun at the beach is essential. Not just to your survival, but it also helps protect your lawn chairs and beer cooler. I recommend firing a few warning shots in the water every few minutes. This lets the sharks know you mean business, so bring extra bullets. Just to be safe, carry at least two guns. When I was at the aquarium, I couldn’t help but notice a lot of the sharks had double weiners. this means you will need to shoot them twice. It’s best to go into the water dressed like Dog the Bounty Hunter. Even if they are attracted to your permed blonde mullet, they’ll be so engrossed by the fat blonde chick with the 5 gallon boobs that follows you around, you’ll have extra time to line up a good shot. If you don’t have access to a gun, or are a convicted felon, stay out of the water. If that won’t work, I recommend a hockey stick with a nail in it. You may not be able to take it on a plane, so just bring a hockey stick, some nails, and a hammer, and build it on the beach. Nobody ever messes with the dude with the hockey stick with a nail in it.

“Hitting a shark in the nose, or eye is the best way to fend them off if you are attacked” Wrong again. Clearly the gun or the hockey stick with a nail in it, is your safest bet. Shooting, stabbing, or punching the shark in the nose will just piss them off. I may not have two weiners, like the sharks do. If I did, as soon as something happened to the first weiner, all I’d care about is saving the backup weiner. Going at one of the weiners is your best bet. Obviously, taking out both at once is ideal. If it’s a chick shark, you may be in for trouble. Your best bet is to punch it in the shark boob. I’ve seen a good deal of female bar fights, and outside of random slapping, hair pulling, and headlocks, the boob punch is the go to move.

Keep these simple tips in mind next time you go near the water. Remember that nowadays, everyone has a camera phone or video camera, so if you do get attacked, take comfort that someday I will be on my couch drinking beer watching you get eaten on the discovery channel, saying I told you so.