Jaws.

The plot: Martin Brody is the new police chief of Amity, an island resort town somewhere in New England. He has a wife named Ellen, and two sons named Michael and Sean. On a Summer morning, Brody is called to the beach, where the mangled body of Summer vacationer Chrissie Watkins has washed ashore. Shark expert Matt Hooper believes Watkins was killed by a shark…


We all know the music that plays when ever the dorsal fin peeks out of the water… dedem… dedem… dedem… dededededededede… As soon as the music comes on we KNOW what is about to happen. Weeeell, unfortunately live doesn’t have back ground music, although sometimes that is exactly what you need.
When A and I drove to the beach in Georgia last year, we were looking forward to some quiet time, some sun bathing (only with looooots of sun screen) and some people watching because that’s what you do when you go to the beach – you watch other people… We got to the beach very early, set up our umbrella and the beach chairs and went for a quick swim. Now, having seen tons of shark documentaries, movies and having a genuine fantasy, I did make up my own rules for things to do when I’m at the beach:


1. never be the one the farthest out (because sharks tend to get the food that is the closest to them and if you are the farthest out, you are also the closest to the shark… right?)
2. always make sure that you can actually stand on the ground (for safety reasons)
3. make sure you do see the ground through the water (also for your own good)


Those rules are essential to me, not because I am a bad swimmer (I’m actually a pretty good swimmer) but because my imagination is a very good fellow, always kicking in, when ever I really don’t need it…


So as A and I were swimming out a bit (but not too far out) and still surrounded by about 5000 tourists, we got to enjoy a fish jumping out of the water right behind a really corpulent guy (he only felt a splash of water on the back of his neck, but we knew that something was in the air… (…dedem…)).
A came closer to me and hugged me, while doing so he was facing the shore and watching our stuff, watching little children playing in the water, elderly people strolling down the shore and just genuinely enjoying the scenery where else I was facing the open wild, the endless blue. (…dedem…)


All of a sudden I felt my panic kick it and told A to get out of the water NOW. He was stunned and smiled, he looked out the water but didn’t see anything so he faced me and asked what the matter was but I couldn’t speak, I already was on my way out. He laughed out loud and called me back into the water, when I turned to look into his face, I couldn’t help but to glance out the ocean again and there it was again… I pointed to some spot in the deep blue sea (…dedem…) but he missed it again. I was already stumbling out of an inch deep water, catching my breath, close to tears and A started laughing, he still didn’t know what was going on (and he obviously thought I was over reacting…). He didn’t catch a glimpse of it… (…dedem…) He didn’t realize in what great danger we were in, he didn’t understand but I knew it was best to get out of the water, pack up all our things and get the hell home… A caught me on my last step out of the water and he saw the fear in my eyes and he asked me again, what the matter was (this time more serious). I still pointed out the ocean and when I finally could speak again, I said, “there was a fin – one single fin”. A looked out the ocean and scanned the water but of course he didn’t see anything. He then stayed next to me and held my hand…


And then he started to laugh out loud. He laughed so hard people were already looking at us. He pulled me close and pointed at the direction where the fin was… And when it came up again, he said, “darling… they are dolphins” (because it actually were two fins, which I totally missed, I only saw one fin at a time…)
When I realized that the fins came up every couple minutes or so I felt relieved but also very stupid… nonetheless if it would have been a shark, I would have totally saved his life, right?

(in case you need the theme song…)