Once upon a time…..
there was a beach at which a shark would devour a portion of a swimmer every decade or so. Sometimes a lower leg; sometimes more than half a torso.
As years went on, though, the lifeguards began to notice that sharks began to swarm the surf, and it turned out that someone in the crowd enjoyed going in the water with a vial of blood and letting it ooze into the oscillation of the tides. The swimmer would then return to the shade of his beach umbrella (yes, it was always a “he”) and sit back and watch the show. Purchasing such vials of blood was very easy, and required almost no effort. The notoriety to be attained by facilitating a “Shark Thrill” weekend quickly led to serious competition that made skateboarding contests an old-fashioned pursuit.
The lifeguards became experts at instantly texting messages in which they sent their “thoughts and prayers” to the families of the victims.
The lifeguards, however, felt they weren’t paid enough to sit around and watch the mayhem, so they got busy fundraising for other worthy organizations. After all, one can’t keep losing people indefinitely without replacing them; and obstetricians, for instance, did need more work, especially in high risk pregnancies. What better way to increase their case load than to ban abortions and make contraception illegal? The lifeguards, therefore, sat in their towers working on fundraising advertising slogans that would replenish the payrolls of their favorite Political Action Committees. And, indeed, all concerned were soon successful in accelerating the birth rate of a nation that claimed it was already too large to accept any immigrants fleeing patriarchal tyranny elsewhere. When asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, young men most often said, “Chum Masters,” for what glory was there in being a lifeguard?
As an ever increasing number of young men continued to inundate their local beaches with chum, the lifeguards regaled their traditions with an annual summer bar-b-cue: “Feast, Not Famine: Keep On Jammin’ ” Unlike the beaches, this event was closed to the public.
About Bill Mohr