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One fish, two fish, Red Sea, Blue Sea

3 min read

This summer, I went all the way across the world to the most exotic locale I could imagine. I flew to a resort on the coast of Egypt and swam in the Red Sea.

Side note: The Red Sea is a beautiful blue and not red at all. The Black Sea, as far as I know, is also blue, but I didn’t go there and check it out. Perhaps the person who named both bodies of water was color blind.

But I digress, like I do. I stood there in the clear, blue water of the Red Sea (it still sounds wrong). The water was so clear I watched a black and white striped fish swim around me. He was followed by a gray fish.

I announced, out loud, “Fishies,” because I’m a 5-year-old.

Then, I realized the gray fish mimicked every movement of the black and white fish precisely. It took me a few minutes to realize that the gray fish was a shadow of the black and white fish. The water was so clear I could see the shadow of the fish.

I didn’t see “fishies”: I saw one lone fish and his shadow. If I had said, “fish” like an actual adult, I would have been right either way.

Warning: Big tangent coming up.

Does it bother anyone that the plural for fish is fish? How many fish? A lot of fish. Even types of fish don’t get a plural, salmon and trout, for instance.

The bear caught the salmon.

All the salmon?

No, just one salmon.

It’s confusing.

Sharks have a plural. I guess it’s more important to know that there is more than one shark in the water than one trout. When swimming in the ocean, one shark is plenty.

I would hate to hear a lifeguard yell, “Shark!” It’s worse if he yells, “Sharks!” Ironically, fish swim in schools and sharks are mostly spotted alone.

There were shark attacks in the Red Sea a few days before I arrived. Had I known, I would not have even worn my swimsuit, except for the first few days of my visit, when it was the only clean article of clothing I had.

Commercial break: Did you know that my column is archived on the Observer-Reporter website? You can read the one about my harrowing experience when I lost my suitcase, “The Case of The Missing Case,” published July 11, at observer-reporter.com. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Every once in a while, you hear from a surfer who was attacked by a shark and they almost all say, “I’d go back in the water again.”

Not me. I wouldn’t even take a bath after that. It would be showers only, providing I could keep my balance on the one leg – since the shark would have bitten off the other.

I don’t doubt the veracity of these shark victim surfers, but I feel the same way about them as I do about the “I’m gonna keep on working” lottery winners.

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