Lists (Entry 1)

Guys love lists. That's just the way it is.

I don't mean, like shopping lists or "Things To Do Today" lists. Those are far too useful, organized, and constructive for us. My wife makes them all the time. She'll hand me the grocery list only for me to forget it whilst I'm out the door to the supermarket. I then have to call her to read me all of the items over the phone when I get there.

It usually only takes two calls though.

Anyway, the kinds of lists guys like fall more into the "Top 5 Driving Songs While Driving Through Iowa" or "Top 3 Sword Fights From Dino De Laurentis Films".

You know. That kind of thing.

So, my previous post about swimming around in the ocean with sharks (see below) got me to thinking about all of the things I DON'T ever want to have happen to me in my life. The shark thing comes in at a tidy #3 ranking.

I therefore present my "Top 10 Things I Never Want To Experience" list:

10. Watching any film with Matthew McConaughey in it*
9. Having a bird poop on my head
8. Paper cut on my tongue while licking an envelope closed
7. Going on a diet that has a name attached to it
6. Listening to Kenny G’s entire catalog
5. Spontaneous combustion
4. A sudden and unexpected inspiration to take up jogging
3. Meeting any animal bigger than me while swimming in the ocean
2. Two words – Adult Incontinence
1. Being invited to a hunting party with Dick Cheney

* subject to change should demand for movies starring Ashton Kutcher begin to increase

Seafood (both human and other varieties)

Last weekend I went diving for abalone.

It was me and a group of three other fellas. Were we experienced abalone divers? No. Did we really know what we were doing? No. Did we even know what an abalone looks like? No.

But what the heck. Nothing says "good times" like submersing yourself in the frigid Pacific on a rainy Saturday afternoon while fumbling around in 3 foot visibility waters for what is essentially a giant slug in a shell.

Actually, it was a lot of fun.

However, do you see this picture above? See how clear the water is? See the experienced diver nimbly plucking the elusive abalone off the rock? Yeah well, our day was nothing like that.

If you want to really know what it was like for us guys last weekend, just close your eyes (and keep them closed for the duration of this exercise), stick your hands out and thrash them about while being encased in like, 3 gazillion pounds of rubber, and then just to cap it all off, pour a bucket of ice water on your head.

THAT's what it was like.

Incredibly though we somehow managed to coerce six of those wily abalone out of their briny home, figured out how to remove the shell, and then......actually ate them. Tasted pretty good.

In any case, with all of that bravado of "plunging down into Davey Jones' locker to retrieve his bounty" aside it was kinda spooky at first though. I mean, it really was a dark and rainy day. We had to dive amongst these giant kelp beds in water that had the clarity of pea soup.

So of course, the only thing I could think about was sharks.

The coast of Northern California is notorious for Great Whites, and here I was swimming and floundering around in their waters like some neoprene appetizer. All of this done by choice. Ah, the things we do in the name of fun.

Anyway, we brought the abalone back to our wives and children who were waiting sensibly in the warm cabins we had rented. We felt like Hemingway's great white hunters returning back to the camp.

For all of our hardwork though, when we showed the abalone to our kids, they all briefly looked at them and simply screwed their faces in disgust and went back to bonking each other on the head with whatever object they were last playing with.

Ah...kids, someday they'll understand the call of the sea. Or the call to dubious, and somewhat goofy, adventure at a minimum.