Pop Quiz: What do Asians and microscopic plankton have in common?

If you answered that they both have a tendency to soothe the appetite for the tiniest of fish that frolic and play in the salty waters near my home, what, have you been spying on me?! I thought that giant, inflatable turtle looked a little suspicious, especially going through the drive-thru across the street after we left the beach, but sheesh!

Nah, it’s ok – we cool, man…

But even if you weren’t secretly along for the adventure earlier this week, let me tell you that it was certainly one of those day trips for the books – maybe One Tank Trips Resulting in the Near-Death Experience of a Sibling or something … just a thought. To elaborate for those completely and utterly lost right now, keeping in mind that I live in Florida, let’s just assume that my sister Lori was down visiting from Michigan and we had decided to pass the time one sunny afternoon by taking a trip down to the ‘ole watering hole that is the Gulf of Mexico to give her an opportunity to see just what it’s like to have a rather large body of water that isn’t completely frozen solid 13 months out of the year.

Let’s assume this because, well, that’s pretty much exactly what happened word for word, with the only exception being that we might’ve stopped off for some pre-beach snacks along the way. I can’t recall for sure, but I’m fairly certain that it’s not really even remotely relevant to this story, so let us move on…

Anyways, so there we were, maybe ten or twenty feet from the shore, in that quaint, almost fairly certain Scott has little chance of drowning zone to which I’ve become accustomed, when all of a sudden out of nowhere I hear the girliest yelp this side of Dollywood! Now mind you, technically it has been verified that my sister is indeed, in fact, a girl, so one might argue that said girly yelp was justifiable, but to that I would simply respond that one should learn not to interrupt because in just a moment when I’ve finished telling my story and thus explained the E! True Hollywood Story behind that yelp, I think you’ll agree with me that the level of girliness with which it was executed was a tad over the top, even for a bonafide, actual girl.

For my sister’s concern, you see, was that simply put, “something was nibbling on her toes.” Granted, this is not entirely an unfounded statement, with the Gulf of Mexico being home to sea creatures of all shapes and sizes, but more so I think it was the sheer enthusiasm with which it was said that caught me off guard. Well, enthusiasm that later turned out to be masking sheer terror, anyways! Of course, it was also around that time that I believe my brother gene kicked in – that being the one that finds it absolutely hilarious watching one’s little sister freak the hell out about her own potential consumption by some mysterious denizen of the not-so-deep. Looking back, I suppose I could’ve been a little more supportive, holding off my uncontrollable laughing fit until after it had been verified that all ten toes were still firmly intact and without any associated nibble marks, but come on – I’m only human!

The way I see it, I guess I can understand some level of concern, citing the obvious differences between here and Northern Michigan – primarily that while there are certainly big fish in the lakes up there, too, just like the humans they, too, tend to find themselves more concerned with getting hypothermia on a daily basis than which dangling human extremities are best for an afternoon snack. But that said, she wasn’t all that concerned about getting taken out by a shark or a barracuda or even a rabid manatee or something – those would’ve been quite legitimate, especially given how much tastier tourists are than us Florida residents! Nope, instead it was allegedly teeny, tiny, microscopic fish so small it would take dozens of them to make a Combo #2 from Long John Silvers, and that’s without exercising any additional Add-a-Fish options that one might so desire…

So I suppose the moral of the story is simply this – siblings can be a great source of entertainment when they find themselves faced with what seems like at the time to be a life-threatening scenario, assuming, that is, that the situation actually is in all reality relatively safe. Otherwise I guess that would probably be pretty horrible and I’d think that I’d feel pretty guilty if my sister ended up having to get prosthetic toes due to overly-comfortable positions with regards to the seriousness of tiny fish on my part. Thankfully, though, that didn’t end up happening and I am happy to report that Lori’s toes are just as intact, if not even more so, than they were before we went swimming in the Gulf on that fateful day.

Besides, I know when I go swimming out there, I find that there’s so much more to get worried about than just my toes…