Saturday, June 11, 2011

An Important Topic That Requires Your Immediate Consideration

I would like everyone in the G:TB universe to take a moment to reflect on the fate of Lauren Failla-- a New Jersey native who was killed in India by a saltwater crocodile-- and I'm not asking you to feel sorry for her, she led a wonderful life until the moment of her death: she had recently graduated from the "prestigious Southeby's Art Institute in London" and was vacationing with her boyfriend in a lovely high-end tourist destination (the Andaman Islands). The crocodile attacked her while she was snorkeling. It's not that she had it coming to her or anything, but when you do adventure travel, there is always risk (and, coincidentally, and what makes the story more awful, is that her older sister died in a rock climbing accident in 2006).

The tragedy of her death isn't my concern here, nor do I wish to rail against the inherent dangers in extreme tourism . . . in fact, I love adventure travel and I've tried my best to get myself and my wife killed in many exotic locales, but the demise of Laura Failla makes me aware that I need to be better prepared when I travel. I need to be prepared that I might be eaten by a predator, and I need to consider what kind of predator I would like to be eaten by. Of course, a determination such as this can effect your vacation plans, because you can only travel to locations with the kinds of predators by which you wouldn't mind being eaten. I'm guessing you haven't reflected on this important topic much, so here are a few ideas to get you started.

As a bare minimum, it's got to be an animal that sounds good when people say the phrase: Did you hear about Dave? He got eaten by a ___________.

Let's try this with saltwater crocodile. "Did you hear about Dave? He got eaten by a saltwater crocodile."

That's not bad, but there are better.  Here are my top seven, in reverse order for dramatic effect.

7. Piranha. 

A shitload of piranha. "Did you hear about Dave? He was kayaking down the Amazon and he gotten eaten by a shitload of piranha."

That's got a nice ring to it.



6. Great White Shark. 

Good for a dramatic pause. Did you hear about Dave? He was surfing and he got eaten by a shark . . . a great white shark.

5. Mountain lion. 

Did you hear about Dave? He was biking and a mountain lion pounced on him and ate him.  I admit that the sentence is a little clunky, but I love mountain lions-- they are powerful, agile, and American-- and wouldn't mind providing a meal for one, even if the description of my death isn't as poetic sounding. That's how much I love those guys.

4. Polar Bear or Grizzly Bear. 

Either one sounds awesome, but their hybrid, the Pizzly Bear, is NOT acceptable. If people would promise to call it the much cooler sounding "grolar bear," then I wouldn't mind, but I don't want my name in this series of questions: "Did you hear about Dave? He got mauled and eaten by a pizzly bear? Is that some kind of stuffed toy? How did it kill him?"

3. Thylacine. 

If you're not familiar with the "Tasmanian Tiger," check out the footage below and read David Quammen's excellent book Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions.

Getting killed and eaten by a marsupial predator that is thought to be extinct is a sure-fire way to have a long celebrated death: "Did you hear about Dave? He got eaten by a thylacine!"



2. Yeti. 

Even better than being killed and eaten by something thought-to-be extinct, is to be killed and eaten by something that never existed at all. Who could forget this story?

"Did you hear about Dave? He was hiking in Nepal and he was abducted by a band of yeti. They ate him. The yeti ate him! And, even more fantastic, is that the word "yeti" is both singular and plural!"


1. Tiger.

Why? Because moments ago I asked my son Alex what animal he'd most like to be eaten by, and this was his answer. When I asked him why he would like to be eaten by a tiger, he simply said, "Big."
He's usually more garrulous than this, but he had just woken up moments before, and I could tell from his expression when I asked him the first question, that he had not reflected on this very important topic, and that's the point of this post.

You need to think about this now and choose your vacation spots wisely. You don't want to end up in a sentence like this: "Did you hear about Dave? He got eaten by wood lice. It's a real shame."

Yes it is a shame. Yes it is.

34 comments:

rob said...

i think my answer will be fairly obvious. i'd like to be abducted by a pack of flying squirrels and dropped to my death from the treetops.

Geoff said...

For those of you who know him, go ahead and treat yourself to Joyner's facebook status today. Worth the trip...

rob said...

cliff's notes for those that don't?

T.J. said...

My demise will come at the hands (paws?) of manbearpig.

Greg said...

For me it's the same as former President Gerald Ford: eaten by wolves.

Dave said...

just won a cake decorating contest.

T.J. said...

Was the winning design you being mauled by yeti?

zman said...

The link takes you to a picture of a crocodile, not of Lauren Failla, but the caption says:

Lauren Failla (below) died after being attacked by a crocodile (not pictured)… (Vatsyayana/Getty/AFP/Getty Images)

TR said...

US is shitting the bed something fierce against Panama.

Who is Clarence Goodson?

TR said...

Big goals for the US of A.

Clarence Goodson scores. I remain unimpressed by him.

rob said...

met chris cooley at a 4-mile race/festival this evening. nothing special to report.

and how the fuck are we losing to panama?

TR said...

"United States was very good last year at pulling it out late."

Knowing when to pull it out is crucial.

zman said...

"I'm not feeding into that," said James, who has been heavily criticized for performing well below his standards during this series. "If you guys want to feed into everything that not only myself or D-Wade or the Miami Heat do, I think that's a non-issue. There's bigger issues in this series than that."

Well said.

rob said...

well, that's a shitty loss

zman said...

Today's G:TB mini-summit went very smoothly even though TR broke one of his cardinal cooking rules by failing to brine the chicken. We figured out solutions to the NFL's labor impasse, the mortgage crisis, and vomitous infants.

TR said...

I would think that my installation of a beer fridge (and 2 cases of beer in it) would make up for my dice-rolling with dry chicken (which didn't come to fruition, thankfully).

I am drunk and alone and rocking out to the Glastonbury 2005 Festival, thanks to Palladia. Killers brought it. White Stripes doing the same. Still undecided on Meg White's sexiness.

TR said...

"Meg White is engaged to musician Jackson Smith, the son of punk singer Patti Smith and late MC5 guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith."

Of course she is.

I wish folks called me Sonic.

rob said...

live-blogging 6 year-old music festivals is a very gheorghey thing to do, tr. well done.

Danimal said...

was cooley schlepping his art at said festival? buy any?

rob said...

no, his wife was running the race.

Danimal said...

you one-upped me. was going to tell everyone that local weatherman, tim the tanman deegan assisted my wife yesterday during a little race here. you guys know tim, right? okay, 2-upped.

T.J. said...

OLLIE WILLIAMS?

Danimal said...

wasn't there a time when nba playoff & final games were played on wkd afternoons?

T.J. said...

rob, there...is...another:

http://yhoo.it/m8awpJ

Mark said...

That was called the 80s, Dan.

And I'll be gored to death by a Wild Boar.

Mark said...

Also, if you want to see some really ugly fucking uniforms, turn on ESPN and look at the shit Florida State is wearing today.

rob said...

in case you were wondering, igor will be pickled by a horde of wild chefs

rob said...

eh, those fsu unis aren't that bad. not good, mind you.

zman said...

Obviously no Peter Paul & Mary fans here.

Mark said...

Those unis aren't that bad? Ive never really like you, Rob.

rob said...

they've got that stupid color patch under the armpit. other than that, they're fairly vanilla.

rob said...

who's watching the tonys? neil patrick harris is the best.

rob said...

the heat look like complete dogshit

zman said...

There's a new post up.