Author: Scott Adamson

Recently – while vegetating under the influence of pain medication following another nightmarish trip to the dentist – I decided to watch a movie. I figured it would be a nice distraction and get my mind off my tooth woes.

For no particular reason, I selected Jaws (although since my teeth are located within my jaws, perhaps there was subliminal messaging at play). I’ve seen the summer blockbuster more times than I can count, and always considered it one the great horror/adventure films ever made.

Here’s the thing, though – experiencing it while mellow and medicated is eye-opening. In fact, it made me realize that Jaws is a horror movie, but it’s the people who are horrible, not the shark.

I’ll explain.

See, at the beginning of the movie Bruce (Bruce is the name they gave the mechanical shark in the title role, so that’s what I’ll call him in this piece) was just doing his thing, which is to swim around the ocean and look for snacks. It was late, he had the munchies, and when he cruised Amity Island, he noticed Chrissie Watkins swimming.

So, he ate her.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

If I’m in my house and I see food, I have every right to consume that food.

The ocean is Bruce’s house, and he was hungry.

Of course, this is tragic for Ms. Watkins and her family, but look at it from Bruce’s standpoint. He didn’t break into her house and eat her; she broke into his house.

Now the politicians in Amity – chiefly Mayor Larry Vaughn – wanted to keep this eating incident quiet because it was tourist season. Police chief Martin Brody reluctantly agreed, and that set the stage for one big feast.

In a sweep through the ocean and estuary, Bruce ate Alex Kintner and a Boy Scout leader. (Well, you don’t see the Boy Scout leader eaten, but you do see his detached leg sinking, so I’m gonna assume Bruce gobbled the rest of him). A dog named Pippet also disappeared in the water but I don’t like seeing bad things happen to animals, so I’m pretending he just got tired of playing frisbee with that hipster and swam to freedom.

Was this “attack” a tragedy for the Kintners and the Boy Scouts of America?

Yes.

Was it a tragedy for Bruce?

No … it was lunch. If you watch the scene carefully, you can see that it’s late morning/early afternoon, so you had to figure Bruce was getting a bit peckish.

Later we found out he had also eaten part of Ben Gardner, so after four human deaths, Brody, ichthyologist Matt Hooper, and ship captain/shark hunter Quint (he had only one name, so I guess he was like Prince or Pink) decided they had to hunt him down and kill him.

Why?

No reason other than he was doing shark things.

Ultimately Bruce was killed in a ridiculous way by Brody, but not before he was able to eat Quint while in the process of destroying his boat.

Was this bad for Quint?

Indeed.

Was it worse for Bruce?

Of course … dude had already been poked, prodded, harpooned and shot, and he figured if he was going to die, he was going to die with a little something on his stomach.

So as the movie was ending – and Brody and Hooper were paddling their way back to shore – I found myself hoping Bruce’s relatives would come along and eat both of them. I mean, they deserved it, didn’t they? They came into Bruce’s territory with the sole purpose of killing him, and the only reason they wanted to kill him is because Bruce had the temerity to dine on the available foodstuff in his neighborhood.

Bruce was not the villain, folks.

Bruce was the victim … I can’t believe it took 47 years and a pain pill for me to finally figure that out.

Last Monday, people around the country celebrated National Sea Monkey Day. I’m sure there were parades, speeches – possibly even the unveiling of underwater statues – but I did not participate in such idolatry.

Although it might be a time of joy for some, it’s a time of anger for me. Because – and I’ve said this many, many times – when you buy a box of sea-monkeys, you buy a box of lies.

My story begins sometime in the 1960s while reading a Batman comic book. There were many advertisements in these publications, touting everything from X-ray glasses to a workout regimine courtesy of Charles Atlas – a workout that would help you build up your body to such a degree you could eventually beat up assholes on the beach (or become an asshole on the beach).

However, the ad that caught my attention was for sea-monkeys, which were billed as “a bowl full of happiness” that can not only be trained, but even play games with each other. (That would be so cool, I thought, especially if one of those games was Yahtzee).

They were alien, yet humanoid, and each had three antennae on their heads. The artist’s rendering depicted mommy, daddy, a teenager and a toddler, and they all seemed happy because they were all smiling broadly. Mommy even had a cool, 1960s-era hairstyle and a yellow ribbon in her hair.

The best part?

They were available at the low, low price of $1.25.

I mean, seriously … I couldn’t afford not to buy them, even though my allowance was mostly reserved for G.I. Joe and Johnny West action figures. Yet for five quarters plus the cost of a stamp, I could send off for sea-monkeys and in six to eight weeks I’d have a bowl full of happiness all my own.

I hoped my family would be as happy as the one pictured, and I had already picked out names for them: daddy would be Vincent, mother, Emma, the oldest child, Chester, and the youngest, Sabrina (but I’d call her “Boom Boom” because I just knew she’d be involved in all manner of hijinks and “Boom Boom” is a great pet name for a young pet sea-monkey).

Every day I’d run to the mailbox to see if my new friends had arrived, but for the longest time all I retrieved were bills and letters addressed to Resident and Occupant.

Then one glorious afternoon, my sea-monkeys found their forever home. Man, I was pumped. I hadn’t felt such a tingle since I watched the first episode of Honey West and discovered Anne Francis.

According to the enclosed directions, all I had to do was pour my sea monkeys into a bowl, add water, and in one second, they would instantly come to life.

After one second, however, I did not see Vincent, Emma, Chester and Boom Boom. All I saw were what appeared to be grains of sand moving around in a bowl.

No antennae.

No broad smiles.

No 1960s-era hairstyle with yellow ribbon.

My parents didn’t know I’d ordered sea-monkeys (I wanted it to be a surprise) but after staring at these miniscule creatures for half an hour, I asked Pop if he could come in and help.

He could not.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” he said. “You should’ve checked with me first and I could’ve told you these things don’t look anything like the drawing … it’s just a way for the company to get your money. I’m not sure what they are, but they look a little like fleas.”

Neither of us knew it at the time, but sea-monkeys are actually brine shrimp – and to me, they resembled a piece of fuzz with a tail.

Had the ad read, “Brine Shrimp” in bold letters and instead of promising “a bowl full of happiness,” promised “a piece of fuzz with a tail,” I would not have sacrificed my hard-unearned G.I. Joe/Johnny West allowance money to buy them.

And as for training, have you ever tried playing fetch with brine shrimp? The minute the tennis ball hits the water, it’s like a freakin’ extinction level event.

I thought about suing, but didn’t know any lawyers. Plus, I was only about seven and wasn’t even completely sure what “suing” meant. So, I just pouted and cried.

Anyway, I’d brought them into my world so I had a responsibility to take care of them. Thus, I did what I could but, after about six months, they were all dead.

That bowl full of happiness became a bowl full of sadness.

To the best of my knowledge, that was the last time I ever bought anything advertised in a comic book. But any time I’d spot the advertisement for sea-monkeys, I’d seethe.

And every year when it’s National Sea Monkey Day, I find myself looking back in anger – missing that $1.25 I’ll never see again and knowing Vincent, Emma, Chester and Boom Boom couldn’t have played Yahtzee with me even if they wanted to.

A box full of lies … that’s all it was.