Foley Enters the Shark Tank

I have never been a big fan of sharks. I try to avoid anything that can chew me up like a Liver Snap.  Even the sharks I meet at the Bridge are cold, aloof and impatient, like a starving man waiting for his order to be filled at Subway.  The only sharks I truly like are the little ones who swim around in a fish tank. My friends Max and Baron have one. He's awesome. He is another soul determined to show smaller is better.  

I have received several prayer requests from business' owners on Cape Cod who are seeing their summer season washed away because of the number of times the beaches need to be closed after another shark sighting.  No matter how good your sales are, no one wants to shop Shark City. 

I love fulfilling prayer requests, but this one was tricky.  I decided the best way to approach the sharks was to be a ghost. The ravenous predators were likely to eat the body I borrowed, and I did not want to visit their dreams because they are dark and twisty places. 

I decided to levitate above them as a ghost. If nothing else it would be a cool visual.  7
I spotted two sharks who were lazily swimming off of Nahant Beach.  I perched above their fins. "Excuse me, " I said brightly. "I am a ghost who needs to ask you a few questions." 

The shark leaped out of the water and tried to bite me, only coming up with vapor.  "Who is there?" He asked, excitedly.

I said I had been tasked with asking them to stop hunting close to the beach and scaring the humans so much they stop swimming.

"We only go close to the shore because that's where the seals are," a shark, who identified himself as Fred, said.  "Have you ever had one of those things? Crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside, with a caramel center. They are delicious."
I told him I did not like seafood. "My brother Tom was like that,” Ed said.  “Hated seafood. Last I heard he was trying his fin at being a land shark. I wonder how that worked out?." 

I asked him if I got the seals to move if they would stay away from the beach.  Bruce, the second shark, shook his massive head. "Truthfully, we want to scare the humans, with their jet skies, their motorboats, paddleboards boards. They are messing up a perfectly quiet sea.  Sometimes we swim up to them and go: "do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do," and watch them freak out." 

"And sometimes we eat them by mistake, " Ed said. "Have you ever had human?  It's mostly fat, it's gamey, it has a horrible aftertaste, and it is hard to digest.  The grain-free is a little better, but we don't have time to read the labels.

I realized this was one of those dreams that would be answered with an affirmative "no."  But, at least I had tried. I thanked them for listening and said I must get back. The Cape Cod Small Business Organization demands to hear bad news immediately. 
They asked if I could go with them to the ocean floor to watch a movie. It was the shark version of "Jaws."   I was intrigued and said I could hang out with them a little longer. 

The movie was great.  At the end instead of Roy Schneider killing the shark with a lucky shot, the shark lifted its head out of the water and snapped old Roy in two then had a Dreyfus Dumpling for dessert.

I found, as would humans if they took a chance, that sharks were utterly delightful creatures with the one drawback that they might eat you.


But what's a lost leg between friends?