Outside of the In-Crowd – Live every week like it’s Shark Week

Courtney Enlow

Each year, there exist certain phenomena we can count upon. 1) Lindsay Lohan will do something insane and get into the most minimum amount of trouble possible, 2) Reality television will take itself to new and more stupid places and 3) Mother. Fucking. Shark Week.

Ladies and gentlemen, you are currently living in the magical world of number three. A beautiful and wondrous seven-day period filled with nothing but sharks, sharks, chewed up surfers and more sharks.

Sharks may be balls-numbingly terrifying, but are the gentle, dead-eyed giants of the sea, according to the people who study them and have not yet been turned into coleslaw at their fins. And because of that, there is much to take away from these snuggly fish friends (note: do not snuggle with a shark; they will cut you with their dagger skin and eat your spooning body like it’s a Dorito).

Sharks may be known for their murderous death touch and lust for blood, but dammit if they aren’t romantics at heart, and they know not to kiss and tell. In fact, sharks have rarely been observed mating. They keep it private. So, listen up, high school girls; if you insist on getting slutty, do it on the quiet. Shark-style.

Humans and their simple feeble minds watch MTV mindlessly, fascinated by the shiny orange people, but sharks know that Jersey Shore has sucked for far longer than Snooki’s been alive. That’s why in the summer of 1916, they made like Jersey was Old Country Buffet and ate all they could. Five people were attacked, with only one surviving. People who didn’t fully fear and respect the power of the shark theorized that the killings were actually done by sea turtles, or perhaps German-trained Nazi sharks. People in 1916 were awesome.

Sharks and wannabe-actresses living on celery and hopeless wishes agree on one thing: nothing tastes as good as thin feels. Sharks laugh in the face of the metric ton of ranch dressing I personally consumed today, and have the ability to survive three months between meals. Sharks live in the sea without makeup or cute outfits and don’t give a fuck how they look and they possess the ability to go three months without eating. I have nine months to fit into a wedding dress and I ate an entire cake in the past three days. I hate you, sharks.

You know those sad teens who are convinced by sixteen years old that they will die alone? Sharks scoff at their angst. Sharks don’t bother mating until they’re 20 or so. In shark years, that’s the equivalent of you or I avoiding ass like the plague until well into our sixties. Sharks just really want to focus on their career before they settle down.

Sharks don’t give a damn about their bad reputation. They are perfectly comfortable with us being terrified of them. Unlike their needy sea brethren, the orca, who have also been known to attack and kill, and yet we buy stuffed versions for our children and wish to free them while Michael Jackson sings beautiful songs about it. And dolphins? Dolphins are goddamn rapists and murderers, known to kill for fun. Think about that, girls who have them tattooed on their ankles.

Most importantly, the biggest lesson to be gleamed from the shark? Stay the fucking fuck out of the ocean. Look, they don’t want us there. When we go there, they eat us. They don’t come on land and follow us around with cameras. The ocean is basically one big watery death trap.

No one’s ever fallen victim to a shark attack while watching Shark Week, you guys. Stay on the couch. It’s never safe out there.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.