What we can all learn from Shark Week

For those of you unaware, last week was Shark Week on Discovery Channel. For me, it is the first week of the rest of my life in which I will never go to a beach again. Aside from this, there is more we can take away from shark week other than a great deal of sympathy for those cute and ultimately doomed baby seals.

First of all, I cannot express firmly enough how important it is during Shark Week to be aware of your culinary choices. For example, cherry pie may seem like a great desert choice, until you are looking down at it noticing how similar in color it is to a severed human leg. If you are on a diet, this could work to your advantage.

More food to avoid serving during televised shark attack re-enactments is jelly donuts. This was a tip sent via twitter by @ToMotherNature. I tend to agree that jelly donuts are the worst possible food choice for Shark Week. Armed with this knowledge, I may have to invite people over now for a nice little Shark Week brunch.

My facebook friend Debbie (aka @debihen), suggests serving minced meat pie for Shark Week. I tried to act on her suggestion, but could not find this particular pie premade at the grocery store. I will only eat pies that are pre-made at the grocery store. I will also eat pies other people have prepared. On further reflection, my issues with pie seemed to be tied in more to the aspects of preparation than the eating. Did you come here to read about my issues with pie? Probably not, but it is clearly too late now.

Right now you are most likely regretting the fact that you have just wasted several seconds of your day reading a slightly ridiculous shark blog entry about pie.  Allow me to console you. One important premise we can take away from Shark Week is that your day could always be worse. No matter what kind of day you are having, it would be infinitely more terrible with a shark chewing on one of your limbs. I suggest we all take a moment this instant to be grateful we are not currently being attacked by sharks.

You don’t even have to stop at sharks when applying this principle to your daily life.  You can always, for instance, be grateful for not being trampled by stampeding cattle.  Debbie considers “shark attacks, killer bee attacks, and fire ant attacks” as further reasons to appreciate your amazing ability to go about your day unimpeded.  In fact, she recommends you use these examples while creating your “NOT to do list.”

Of course, this premise can only be taken so far. If you are dying of a drug overdose, then a shark attack wouldn’t seem so bad in the whole scheme of things. Allow me to take a moment to convey my heartfelt sympathy to anyone currently suffering a drug addiction and simultaneous shark attack. Your day could not possibly get any worse… at least not without fire ants.

Reading these blogs, you could get the idea I don't know any real people. Just so you know, I do know actual live individuals and not just twittery-facebook ones. However, the actual real people in my proximity always want me to do things like go to cattle stampedes or shark-infested beaches. Plus, I have the sneaking suspicion that they do not exist. How can I prove people are really there if I am not looking right at them? For all I know, they could dissolve the second I look away. Or, as @whejas suggests, if I have failed to previously imagine them. If I know you in person and you are not existing right now, this means I have failed you. I’m sorry.

This post seems to have wandered a bit off topic. To wrap things up, here are a few things we can all learn from Shark Week:

1. Be grateful for things you are not currently being attacked by
2. Remember to exist when no one is looking right at you

I hope you have found this helpful.