I am calling this journal entry, 'Asshole Tendencies!'
Ya see my mom, who loves me dearly, has affectionately referred to me as 'Asshole' since I was a wee lad…… Seems she thinks I have these asshole tendencies that can kinda get me into trouble. Not surprisingly trouble is not really a new thing for me ;)
So whenever my mother hears about some harebrained idea I come up with, she usually gesticulates wildly about and then lets loose with a good….'Asshole'. It's the little things in life.
Nowadays I have my own internal 'asshole tendency' meter. Some acts hardly register while others can rate right off the scale. They require a recalibration of sorts. Like that time in Ecuador when I marched into the gang of knife-wielding thieves or when I crashed a Mayan ritual and danced about with a trance-induced old Mayan man wielding a large machete. (BTW: I got plenty of slack for those activities so save your breath.)
So when my brother-in-law asked me if I wanted to go Great White Shark diving off the coast of South Africa, my asshole tendency meter kicked in. I tried to picture what my mother might have to say about such an activity. I tried to gauge by her would-be wild gesticulation or possible seizure. To be honest I had to let loose a little laugh trying to picture the look on my mother's face when I told her that Scottie and I planned on going Great White Shark cage diving.
Such acts require post-communication. By that I mean that the activity in question needs to be engaged in and completed before the admission of intent is made. That way parents and loved ones will have only a brief flash of 'he'll get killed' before they realize you are still alive. (At least for the time being.) Clever eh?
So if you possibly hear or heard the faint scream of an exasperated Jewish mother's cry of 'Asshole' you will now know the source and that my mother has just finished reading this journal entry….
So the four of us (Amy, Sami, Scott and I) rented a car and drove to the highly shark-infested waters of Gansbaai, South Africa. There we arranged a cage dive with an outfit that routinely plopped tourists into steel cages and then baited great white sharks into the area. To be honest I didn't really think we would see too many great white sharks. My experience in the past has been that large sea animals are rare and hard to find. I thought we might catch a glimpse or two of a great white but that it would be fleeting……
Boy was I wrong! Way wrong….. After hanging about for almost an hour. The only interesting thing I saw was both of my sister's puking off the side of the boat. They did this 'my turn-your turn' thing. It was really very civilized…..