Yesterday Spencer and I wen swimming in the Gulf. I'm hoping to do a triathalon sprint with her next summer. I'm pretty sure we swam at least a quarter mile, in addition to which is the incalculable aerobic benefit of swimming in choppy surf, plus screaming. Most of the screaming was accomplished on this journey by Spencer. When she screamed, she screamed like Curly on the Three Stooges: a high pitched "Woop-oop-oop-oop," as she flailed her arms. If you think it's easy swimming in rolling waves, flailing your arms, and shouting "woop-oop-oop-oop," like Curly on the Three Stooges all at the same time is easy, you try it some time. The reason for the Curly style screaming was a certain number of sea critters down there were getting up close and personal with us. It's strange that this would provoke a scream. They were very small, we could tell, and they never bit us, just sort of nosed us. They were smaller than the smallest kitten, and if a kitten had done exactly that, we'd have thought it was adorable. I think part of it is, that you can't see what's down there. You don't know if it's got flippers, fins, or tentacles. You don't know how big it is. It feels like the nose of a relatively small fish, but the nose tip of a twenty foot shark and a two-inch minnow would be approximately the same size, so who can say? Also, you know whatever's down there it's not like you - you might be in there training for a triathalon sprint, but that little critter bumping against your nether regions is in there pursuing its livelihood, and its livelihood is mating with other critters of the same species and finding stuff to eat: given that you know you're not a potential mate, you have to wonder if you might be a potential meal. When we reached our destination Spencer was somewhat unnerved and evinced no further desire to swim in the Gulf, so this morning I swam alone. One fish was particularly intrigued by my nipples which much have appeared to it underwater like two pink bull's eyes. It didn't bite me, just nosed me.
I squealed like Curly.
