An Open Letter to Sharks

(EDITOR'S NOTE: We have been cleaning out the Arteejee blog closet to close out the year, and we found this unpublished piece originally written in July, when it was more relevant. Long story as to why it got shoved in the closet, but suffice it to say that somehow the file got corrupted before publication and the temperamental author threw a hissy fit, with a vow that the offending entry would never see the light of day. Or at least a day when Arteejee is out of ideas. That day - when the blog muse is MIA - has arrived.   Please enjoy!)

As you probably have heard by now, there has been another public relations disaster unleashed on an unsuspecting public about your species. A television network has recently released a film called Sharknado, which depicts a cataclysmic weather event that bodily picks up thousands of your brethren and deposits them on dry land, where they devour every biped in sight. Okay, so perhaps this is a feeding frenzy that is beyond your wildest dreams, but it perpetuates negative stereotypes for your kind nonetheless.

This is the worst example of anti-marine mammal propaganda since the Peter Benchley debacle of 1975. I think you recovered nicely from the summer of Jaws, but this latest work, as the kids are prone to say nowadays, went viral, which means that a lot of people saw it. Many ate it up, if you’ll pardon the expression. Many others allowed their jaws to drop in incomprehension, or miscomprehension, or discomprehension, or anti-comprehension, or whatever. Mika Brzezinski’s WTF reaction on MSNBC’s Morning Joe was particularly noteworthy.

The scenes of shark destruction are grisly and disturbing. One poor fellow swallows a chain saw grasping human being and is gutted from the inside out for his trouble. So let this be a lesson to any little sharks reading this: Beware of the McCullough. It will only bring you misery.

What I don’t understand is how the tornado can pick up only sharks and no other animals from the oceans. Why couldn’t it also pick up thousands of shrimp, already deveined and peeled by the winds, and deposited for human consumption? For that matter, why couldn’t the winds also drop jars of cocktail sauce? Now there’s a feeding frenzy into which I could sink my teeth!

It’s a shame that this had to happen again, and just when you were making positive inroads in society. I don’t have the statistics to back this up, but I have heard that the number of sharks admitted to prestigious law schools is up. 

I want to make it very clear: I had nothing to do with Sharknado. I would never participate in any venture aimed at the derogatory portrayal of any species of creature. This is particularly true if the species could suddenly jump out of their natural habitat (as Hollywood might have us believe) and swallow me with one fell swoop.

Just to show that my intentions are honorable, I can offer suggestions on how you can counteract this latest attack on your noble species and rehabilitate your public image. You could volunteer at soup kitchens, doling out portions of soup to the homeless instead of chomping down on their limbs. You could read stories to children in schools instead of swallowing them whole. Or you could serve as mentors to young lawyers in thousands of law offices across the country, instead of savaging them.

Lastly, let me thank you, sharks of the world, for the great job you do in ridding the world’s oceans of the dead and dying sea creatures. Your predatory life style keeps the waters clean for the living, thriving denizens of our global waters. If it weren’t for you, we would be up to our scuppers in shrimp shells!

(Thank you for reading post #777! Sharks are also great served with cocktail sauce. No, no, wait! I didn’t mean that!)