When HM Attacks

Sometimes, people amaze me. And not in a good way.

This morning I watched an episode of When Vacations Attack. Contrary to the growling stomachs, soiled-clothing-stained backs, and hoarded-treasure-skinned knees of my three totally-dependent, live-in males...I had nothing better to do.

Usually, When Vacations Attack has dramatic footage of folks nearly done in by nature or Newton's Laws while enjoying a holiday at the shore, in the mountains, wrestling alligators, hanging off the side of a bridge on a bungee, driving through forest fires, taunting big game on safari, or getting tangled in homemade zip lines. But part of today's episode was a head-scratcher. Not a literal head-scratcher. That could have turned deadly, I suppose, what with flesh-eating-bacteria all the rage before those face-eaters demanded their fifteen minutes. No, this was a figurative head-scratcher. Why was this tape on When Vacations Attack?

Tourists on a whale-watching boat encountered a pod of killer whales stalking a seal. The seal was lolling on an ice floe. The whales circled, and broke off sections to make the floe smaller. Pushed it around. Then regrouped, swam in formation at thirty miles per hour, and washed a huge wave over the top of the ice to dislodge the seal.  A young killer whale waited on the other side to eat the seal when it slid into the water. Except he was young, and the seal got away. Momentarily. To swim onto another ice flow. And be washed into the water again, and devoured. Many of the tourists filmed the attack.

Big deal. No people were harmed. I kept waiting for the whales to turn their attention to the boat. To see a human life-or-death drama unfold. Didn't happen. The whole segment was about one seal being eaten after an orchestrated attack by a pod of killer whales. I call shenanigans! Nothing about this vacation attacked any people! Send it to America's Not-Funny Home Videos.

I was appalled at those tourists shrieking like it was their last moment on earth. The people last week on the slopes of a surprise volcano eruption, running from a rain of tephra the size of baby goats, kept their crap together much better than these doom-criers. News flash: It's a SEAL, people. Not a newborn human infant being ripped limb from limb. A seal. Only one man turned to the rest and said, "If you can't take the bullfight, leave." Not the most imaginative of commands. Nothing like forsaking the heat of the kitchen. But he had the right idea.

What do these Doom-Criers think killer whales eat? Cans of Ol' Orca Fancy Beast? Do they, perhaps, use their sparkling personalities to implore passing walruses to open the cans with their tusks?

Mother Nature is a harsh taskmistress, my friends. If she had a flag to fly, it would be that of a bloody carcass of indeterminable origin, shredded flesh clenched in a set of razor-sharp fangs, with the motto "Eat or Die." Because the Jolly Roger is already taken.

Those whale watchers, with their fancy schmancy video cameras and bleeding hearts, have way too much disposable darn income that could better be spent on gas station chicken and 44 oz. Diet Cokes.