I'm no newbie to Shark Week. I happened upon Shark Week decades ago when my oldest was up sick during the night, and my husband and I both decided to stay up with him. Cable was pretty lame back then, around 1988 when we lived in a crappy apartment on the top of the hill in the center of Methuen. In the wee hours of the morning, Discovery channel was showing the Oak Bluffs Shark Tournament, which takes place off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. My husband, a shark freak, was instantly hooked; I enjoyed the shows but was slightly unnerved by the film footage.
After reading the novel then watching the movie Jaws, I was hesitant to go in the ocean over my head, and I stopped swimming in the ocean after dark regardless of how full the moon might be, how many other people were around, or how much alcohol had been consumed. Days after I saw the movie in the theater, a great white shark was caught off the coast of Newburyport and Plum Island. You know … right where I used to swim … all … the … time. Check that earlier sentiment: I will no longer go into the ocean above my waist. (Don’t tell me I can be attacked in less than three feet of water. This is something I know in my brain but deny when at the beach.)
Tonight, though, I’m already uneasy just one hour into Shark Week . I’m watching the television, and these crazy divers are taking turns going down inside a semi-bottomless cage called WASP, and one guy keeps getting smacked around by a 4,000-pound, 18-foot great white shark. I’m not positive, but it looks like the shark is beating the crap out of that cage. The next show is all about a 30-foot shark with a taste for human blood that has actually pushed swimmers out to sea.
