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by MC Lain
When I was a little kid, I was huge on ocean life. I mean, I wanted to be an expert on whales and seals, and live by the ocean, and get paid for it. (I had seen “Free Willy” and thought all the dumb beasts of the sea were really that loving, that dear, that easy to train. Sure, they’ll jump over that rock, just hold your arm up. [Then I got a dog and realized that they were hopeless. It was truly after my first boyfriend, however, that I realized that all mammals were generally useless and completely untrainable.] )
I’d always been a fan of manatees until one afternoon an SUV-detesting friend of mine commented upon the likeness of a former friend to a manatee. Wide, white, bloated, sort of dull and vapid, you could almost imagine him/her/it floating just below the surface, always just on the verge of being hit by some landlubber asshole out to spend his Sunday afternoon drunk on a boat instead of inside playing video games like he ought to be.
Useless, ugly, bubbling below the surface, the manatee, thinking he/she/it is a mermaid, sneers at the angelfish and clownfish both. They duck to avoid getting crushed.
You all have these figures in your lives: the creatures that are too stupid to know any better, that spurt off (no water pun intended) insults without regard to what’s really being said. Blub blub blub they’re simply too good, too self-centered to even share your air; they’ll breathe it when you’re not, thanks. They’ll be towing their lard in the opposite direction of yours, spank you very muc