SHARKS have astonishing sensory gifts but virtually no sense of occasion. Incidents of sharks crashing dinner parties have been reported from as far away as Madagascar and as close as Malibu. If you find a hammerhead or a great white horning in on one of your intimate gatherings, stay cool and collected. Do not wave your arms about or slap at it with a napkin. Keep the conversation going as if everything were normal. Blow out all candles, slowly ease up out of your chair, and go for the light switch, turning it off. Then wait at least fifteen minutes. Sharks thrive on visual stimulation, and they have very short attention spans; the finned interloper will probably get restless and bored, and leave of his own accord.
Being caught unawares by a shark while you’re setting up a tee shot is not only exasperating; it can also be costly. (Remember the amateur video of a leopard shark gobbling up a Callaway driver that was played over and over last summer on the TV news?) It may be counterintuitive, but if you see or even sense a shark on the tee, heave your golf bag as far as you can and run in counterclockwise circles. This will confuse the shark, whose sensory orientation is clockwise only, and it could help you avoid a nasty nip.
Sharks are also dyslexic. Knowing this could defuse the situation if you ever find yourself face to face with one of these undersea killing machines in a public library or a Christian Science reading room. The shark will probably start nosing the book, magazine, or newspaper you’re reading with repeated sharp jabs, trying to knock it out of your hands. Resisting will only enrage the beast; let it go. In the same motion, pick up a dictionary—or, better yet, an encyclopedia—and flash some pages directly in front of his eyes. Sharks are almost all instinct and no brain to start with, but when you add in the dyslexia this method will almost surely induce a trance state in the big guy, allowing you to make a safe getaway.
Are you really certain that’s a shark in your bathtub? Dolphins and tuna also go for warm water, and hasty misidentification has caused many a panicked home bather to sheepishly call back the local Coast Guard to admit a false alarm. Rule of thumb: If it’s thrashing, it’s a shark. Petting it, or feeding it a bath toy or a sponge, will buy you at best ten seconds, so get out of the tub immediately. Now, here’s where some of those old wives’ tales about sharks come in handy. It is true that sharks hate soapy water, and the feeling of being toweled off does irritate the sensitive nerve endings in their skin. So, while you’re waiting for emergency help to come, toss as many bars of soap into the tub as you can while briskly rubbing around the beast’s gill area with a fluffy bath towel. Chances are that Jaws will beat a hasty retreat.
An Australian couple who discovered that a shark had invited itself into the back seat of their car did exactly the wrong thing. They started driving at high speed and violently lurching from side to side, in an attempt to induce car sickness in their unwanted guest. This was a vain and unwise thing to do—sharks are immune to motion sickness. A shark in your car need not be fatal, though, if you follow a few simple directions: Turn the radio up as loud as it will go and start singing at the top of your lungs. Forget that you look, feel, and sound foolish. Keep it up, and you’ll soon overburden the shark’s ultrasensitive sonar hearing system and bring on a thumping migraine painful enough to take the starch out of a great white. He’ll soon close his eyes and probably slump down in his seat. That’s your cue to gently bring the car to a stop—remembering to roll up all windows as you do so—and vamoose.
It’s a common myth that sharks fear nothing. In fact, they are terrified by any number of things. One is cats. Another is heights. Signaled by some primitive instinct that he is literally out of his element, the shark finding himself in an up elevator or on a penthouse terrace will lose all his fight. Remembering this will comfort you should you suddenly notice a shark sitting next to you on an airplane. You’ll probably even start to feel sorry for the poor limp creature groaning there beside you, oblivious of the food cart, of the in-flight movie, of you—of everything but his own misery.
These tips can help mightily to even up the contest between man and shark, but they do not work in every instance. Nobody has ever mounted a successful defense against a shark-in-a-bed situation. Ditto for those caught with open cans of ham while picnicking. Yet, in all fairness, there is an upside to shark encounters. For example, did you know that there’s never been a single documented case of a shark attacking a Girl Scout troop without provocation? Or that you can set your clock by the sharks that show up for a burial at sea—and no, not just for the eats? (Mariners as far back as the fifteenth century knew that a shark will never bite an iron lung, a wheelchair, or any prosthetic device.) So be afraid. Be very afraid. Just don’t give in to hysteria; that’s exactly what they want you to do.
2001