I love most animals. I really do. And some that I should probably be really scared of, like tigers and bears, I’m not so much, scared that is. Maybe that’s because I’ve been able to touch both of them. The bear wasn’t in a cage or anything. But there are a couple of animals that scare the ever loving bejeezus outta me- sharks and alligators. Now lucky for me, I find it pretty easy to avoid both of them. I wouldn’t have a snake in my house either, but that’s for another discussion.

I’m none too found of spiders either, but as far as I know, I’m bigger than they are so I’m OK. Logically I know I should be a lot more afraid of them, especially the brown recluse,  since I’m probably a million times more likely to encounter a spider than one of the other two, but I’m not. For the most part I know where spiders like to be and I just make sure I don’t go there. (I don’t start screaming for Doug when I see a spider.) Of course if I ever become truly tiny like the guy in the Incredible Shrinking Man, I’m screwed. But then he had a whole lotta other problems as well. (I love old sci-fi movies from the 50′s.)

I remember standing in line to see Jaws. I really wish I’d never seen it. I haven’t been able to go into open water since that day without thinking about it for at least a minute or two. I mean I do go in, but I still think about it.

I know, I know, more people are killed by lightning every year than by sharks. And in fact, I did actually know someone who was killed by lightning 40 years ago.  She was at our local mall walking to her car in a thunderstorm. That bolt just passed right by all the tall light poles in that parking lot and instead came on down and snuffed out her life in 1 second.

But I still go out when storms are imminent without giving it a second thought. I mean I don’t stand around in a field waving a 9 iron or anything, but I also don’t hide away when the dark clouds gather and the thunder crackles. But there are weeks in Houston when we get thunderstorms every day for a month. If I did that, I’d become a shut-in.

I’m happy to report that I don’t know anyone who’s ever been attacked by a shark.  For the most part, staying out of open water has never been a huge problem for me since the water that I’m closest to, The Gulf of Mexico, usually resembles thin chocolate milk. (The Gulf near Galveston has a mud bottom which gives it it’s lovely brown color.) I don’t enjoy being in open water where I can’t see the bottom. For some unknown reason, once in a blue moon the water there will be blue; but those days are few and far between.

Of course I did decide to give up my life as a professional surfer after seeing Jaws in 1975, but having to maintain my bikini body was getting to be a real hassle anyway as you know how much I like cake.

When I went to Club Med in 1981 I threw caution to the wind and went body surfing every day. Lucky for me the biggest problem I had there was when I came up outta the water, the top of my swimsuit had decided to stay behind. Since it was a topless beach anyway, no one really gave me second look; although back then it wouldn’t have been a problem anyway. I looked good.

Now, not so much. If it happened now, you’d see people would be running for their lives like Godzilla was coming ashore.

It’s always funny though when you’re standing on one of the ferries near Galveston or Padre island and you hear someone yell, “SHARK! SHARK!” Of course, it isn’t a shark at all, but the dorsal fin of a bottlenose dolphin. We always assume those folks are from Iowa, Kansas or someplace like that.

Alligators and crocodiles for the most part, aren’t a huge problem in Houston. We don’t have nearly the problem with them they do in Florida. Although there is a country club that’s perhaps 3 miles from my old house that occasionally has a reptilian visitor. The golf course there is adjacent to a nature preserve and sometimes in the winter one of them will just saunter onto the fairway and plop down for a sunbath. I’ve heard the golfers just “take a stroke”, leave their golf balls right there and keep on going. Eventually the alligator always goes home, so no one messes with them. By law they’re protected here.

In another lifetime, in a parallel universe, I used to water ski in Lake Houston. It, like The Gulf of Mexico near here, has a mud bottom and doesn’t look like Lake Tahoe let me assure you. (For those who haven’t seen it, Lake Tahoe looks so blue it looks fake.) Anyway, Lake Houston is not like that. Parts of it look very swampy. My older brother, who owned the boat, always thought it was best to ski close to the tree stumps where most boats wouldn’t go- less wakes from other skiers. I was young, and dumb, and trusting.

Anyway, skiing there seemed like a good idea until one day when he was in the water we heard a loud “slap”. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, anywhere around us- not even a tree that could’ve lost a limb. So all we could surmise is that the sound emanated from an alligator. Why we never thought of that before I do not know. I never knew he could move so fast. He was a blur getting back into that boat.

(If I’d known what a giant penis head he was going to become to our mother when he got older, I’d driven the boat off and left him there with Andy the alligator.)

At any rate, I haven’t been in that water since. God must protect fools, at least for a bit.

When we were staying at a motel on one of the Florida keys, the manager told us that usually it was ” just fine” to swim in the water at their place. However, just near their beach, there was a river that emptied into the open water and occasionally, just occasionally there’d be a toothy reptile lurking about nearby- so keep a lookout. We decided not to swim.

So what are you afraid of?

How did this happen a sane person would ask? Well, he said he was distracted by a pelican. Now I must agree that a low flying pelican can be a distraction. When we were going to Key West 5 years ago, a pelican was flying just to the left of our car perhaps 8′ or so away. I’d never seen a pelican in flight that close up and found it fascinating. However, lucky for us, Doug was able to contain his amazement and excitement and keep our 1991 Suburban safely on the road. Do I think this guy was really distracted by a low flying pelican? No I don’t. I think something else was afoot or perhaps “ahand”.

Awhile back I remember Doug telling me about an NBA player who had an accident due to “unusual circumstances”. In 2006 NBA player Eddie Griffin plowed his Cadillac Escalade into a parked car. Mr. Griffin had a good reason why he couldn’t be expected to keep his eyes on the road. He was watching porn on the DVD player mounted on his dashboard. In addition to watching the DVD, he wasn’t keeping both hands on the steering wheel at the time of the incident. One hand was located in his lap, testing to see how much he really liked the movie- You get it- right? (Email me for a more explicit explanation if you don’t).He received a ticket for “inattentive driving”. What a euphemism!

I can attest that men, at least the men I know, are highly distractable drivers. There have been countless times that I wished that I had a pair of blinders that I could put on Doug while he’s driving and I’m in the car.  He turns his head so often to see what he might miss that if you see him from behind it looks like he’s watching a tennis match while he drives. I don’t hear the Call of the Wild that he hears constantly coming from the side of the road. Perhaps women just aren’t capable of hearing those sounds. (Kinda like a dog whistle that humans can’t hear). Doug’s distractibility while driving is so bad that I panic if he’s out and about and runs really late getting home.

According to the comments that I’ve read online about the Bugatti wreck there are a fair number of people who think the owner of that extremly expensive car might have done this intentionally as part of an insurance scam. I don’t know that for a fact. However, I didn’t see any pelican in the video clip of the accident. Pelicans being such large birds I think if there was one there I would’ve seen it.  I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt though. (Perhaps it was on the right side of car).

I know one thing for sure though- that if I was driving a car that was worth almost $2,000,000 I’d be keeping both hands on the wheel and my eyes fixed on the road ahead. But then I’m just a girl.

Alright, I know my skills as a videographer suck. In my defense, I took this video with my phone while trying to feed a stingray at the same time. Last Sunday Doug and I were working an event in Kemah, TX. (The event was unwonderful). However, I thought I’d remembered hearing about some type of animal encounter attraction offered at the Aquarium restaurant. Our booth was very close to the restaurant. It was getting to the end of our day and I was more than ready to pack up and go home. (We hadn’t made a dime in over an hour). I was getting antsy wanting to leave so I went over to check it out.

For $5.99 you got to see the stingrays and also were given food for them -4 tiny, 3″ fish. I followed the path which led me into a huge room with a large pool surrounded by a short wall. There must’ve been at least 40 stingrays of assorted sizes flying through the water. Since the wall was only 2″ tall, you could reach in, touch the water and the rays too. (Their barbs had been removed) .They were everywhere! Some of them were 5′ across. However most of the big ones didn’t come too close to the wall, probably just do to lack of manuvering room.

There was a sign explaining how to feed the stingrays. You had to hold the fish between your knuckles, put your hand about 10″ under water and wait for the ray to come to you. I did that and didn’t have long to wait. For them to get to the food their entire body will cover your hand entirely while they eat since their mouth is on the underside. It’s very disconcerting the first time you do it, but it was neat.  The rays would come up and beg for food. To get their mouth near the food, they have to lift the front of their body up and out of the water. This freaked out some of the visitors. When they start flapping their wings while partially out of the water you can see just how powerful they are.

Stingray begging for food.

I was all pumped after doing this and went to tell Doug. He was unimpressed. It seems the only animals that he’s really interested are dogs. Doug didn’t want to feed a white tiger a chunk of meat with a pair of tongs, or pet the black bear when I did that at other places around the country. Since Sunday, I’ve done some research and discovered that you can actually be in the water with rays at some tropical resorts. However, for those of those who are unable to get away this is a really unique experience. I recommend it. Just remember to bring a camera and get someone else to do the filming. Today’s trivia answer- erythrocytes.