Andrew Vladeck

Blog / When Sharks A-Snack

Here’s a dispatch from family vacation.   Hope all y’alls’ summers are going great.

Last year, on family vacation, my mom and I went for a hike through a beautiful cypress swamp in Virginia where she was bitten on her achilles heel by one of the most poisonous snakes in North America (the water moccasin).  Thanks to my vague recollection of first aid from my cub scout days, I almost made things much worse (note: don’t elevate leg, don’t apply tourniquet).   She spent the week in the hospital getting rounds of anti-venom, and a couple of months later was dancing the zumba.

This year, on family vacation, I was not hoping for a repeat.  My brother and I went kayaking in the ocean, with his little fishing rod.   Now look, for the most part, I’m a city boy.  In the ocean I’m like a… like a… fish out of water (for lack of a better term).   So I’m sitting in this dingy, listening for the telltale ominous cello music to begin, waiting for some underwater leviathan to surface on cue, it’s dorsal fin cutting through the water like a stiletto… and then my brother catches, you guessed it, a flippin shark.   It was about yay big - if you could see my hand gesture… but still… it looked the part.      So to add to the excitement, my brother (and by contrast, he somehow became an outdoorsman extraordinaire - think Grizzly Adams meets MacGyver)  insisted on removing the lure from the sharks jaw, so it would not have to swim around with a plastic fish hooked to its jaw for the rest of its life, like a donkey following a carrot.  A noble idea, which required us bringing the shark to the beach and figuring it out from there.  Basically, one-part shark out of water, two-parts towels, 3-parts shots of Tequila.  Long story short, we did, and nothing got injured, except for the sharks pride.

Anywhoo, what’s a little excitement, right?  Have a great summer ~~~ !

Andrew

Posted on 07/01/10 at 10:09AM | Filed under: blog