Instructions on the Bathroom Wall

A million to one.  Those are the odds I just made up that a shark will attack and or eat you when you are swimming, surfing or body boarding.  Every time an individual enters the water they have a million to one shot that a shark is going to ram into their body, eyes rolled back with their pointy teeth bulging into bones.

For those of you unfamiliar with odds... imagine you are a gladiator fighting in an arena.  In order to be given you freedom you have to beat a certain amount of guys.  The almighty Caesar points at you and bellows, "You must fight off one million mans, or all your base are belong to us!"

In all reality, the odds are probably more like ten million mans against one man.  Often people use the phrase of comparison that may sound something like, "Dude, that was a drive in movie night of biblical proportions!"  Well, if we want to go Biblical proportions on man versus man odds, Samson killed 5000.  One of David's Mighty Men killed 800.   Anyone in the Bible kill a million people?  Nope.  Do people get eaten by sharks?  Yup.  So a lot of people are swimming.  More than a million, or ten million a year.

What I am trying to say is that, it could happen to you, but it won't happen to you... it shouldn't happen to you.  What I am really trying to say is that fear is to paper as logic is to rock.

So would I rather take my chances putting my meager life savings on the roulette wheel or swim every day of summer in the ocean?  That would only up my odds of coming into unsavory contact with a meat eating aquatic monster to around ninety mans against a million mans.

I say, "Let it ride Black Thirteen!"

I did manage to stay in the water for an extended period of time, and even tried surfing.  I now know the literal definition of "catching a wave" though I was unable to trap one myself.  I came close, but they are so dang slippery.  Like an squid's head.

After my blessedly uneventful foray in the waves, I took a walk down the beach and found a mini-peninsula between two coves where the waves crashed into each other at more or less right angles.  They would barrel through one another like a relentless game of "Red Rover" and continue on into the ocean.  They left behind a sort of crisscross "X" of ripply waters full of sand and wood bits that moved like crawling bugs as the waves receded, pulling everything back only to smash it all on the shore moments later.  It was peaceful and made me think of Isidora.

On the way out, I stopped in the bathroom.  For men, peeing takes place in a long, chest high metallic trough. At eye level were the words, in a fat black marker, "Stand up on the step and piss in the urinal."

I took a picture and followed said directions.

Cheers,
Melmoth


PS
By request, here is the photo.