#182 In which our hero discusses a phobia that he knows is rather irrational but scares the crap out of him nevertheless.

Fucking NaBloPoMo! I really don’t have anything to report, so this would generally be a post-free day on my site… but nooo! Now I have to post something.

Fortunately, before this whole mess started I jotted down some emergency blog topics. Things I knew I could write about, allowing me to avoid posting a photo of my cat and calling it down. This is one of those topics:

I am scared to death of sharks.

I hope your reaction to this is, well, yeah, who isn’t afraid of these torpedo-shaped eating machines prowling the oceans just waiting for you to dangle your hand innocently over the edge of your boat before it rockets up and devours you!

But, you may be one of those lunatics that has no fear of sharks, and wants to go snorkeling with them or whatnot. Freaks.

Being that I have in Cleveland, the chances of me being eaten by a shark are, thankfully, slim. We don’t even go to the lake, and we certainly don’t go to the ocean that often. I say “we” but The Scientist foolishly doesn’t share my fear. The fool.

I’m not sure where this phobia came from; it’s not like I ever had a shark-related incident. I grew up ever further from large bodies of whatever than I am now, and it wasn’t really until college that I remember starting to think, “Huh, sharks. They could eat you pretty quick, I imagine.”

But it’s progressed to the point that I’m a little uncomfortable and sometimes a little panicky in the ocean. When we were honeymooning in Hawaii we took a late night walk on the beach once, and I think The Scientist floated the idea of jumping in the water. To which I replied No. Fucking. Way. The ocean? At night? Have you never seen Jaws?! This exchange may never have actually happened anywhere outside my own head; the fear makes things cloudy.

To give you an idea of my fear level, take a look at this photo:

Holy shit. Look at that fucker. That’s a real mako shark weighing in at 1,082 pounds and is 10’10” long. Tell me that thing doesn’t want to eat you. Jesus. More details here.

This photo gives me the heebie-jeebies. This shark is dead in the photo, but even so, there’s no way in hell I’d stand as close to its mouth as that guy is. Just in case, y’know, it came back to life and was hungry. On a scale of 1 (doesn’t bother me) to 10 (I just had explosive diaherra in my shorts) I’d give this image a 6.

Now this:

The caption says the experience was “fairly tense” for the guy in the kayak. Really? Tense? If this was me, I would have already shit out my spleen in terror. Details here (he wasn’t eaten). Pants crapper rating of 8.

Or how about this?



Turns out that’s a dolphin in the photo, not a shark. Y’know what? Doesn’t matter, it still makes my heart race a bit looking at it. Yikes. More here. Entering Browntown level 9.

Finally, this one:

Yeah, I know, this is a fake photo. Not real, not even the slightest. But knowing that doesn’t make any difference, it still scares me witless. Jesus. Craptastic score: perfect 10!

So there you have it, Internet buddies, I’m scared of sharks. So the next time I beg off your pool party, you’ll know it’s not personal.