Whenever I go to the beach and peer out into the ocean, I often heat John Williams’ “Theme from Jaws.” Humans are both fascinated and fearful of apes predators, yet our chances of dying from a shark attack are 1 in 250 million. So to put your mind at ease, here are the top ten ways you’re more likely to die at the beach than from a shark attack:
01. Your child forgets where he buried you in the sand while you were sleeping.
02. Sautéed to death in tanning oil.
03. Knocked in head by multiple surfboards when someone shouts “Hey, Woody!” to a gaggle of surfers walking by you.
04. Choked to death on a Popsicle stick.
05. Chest hair catches fire when you lean over to light the portable grill.
06. Held beneath the surface of the ocean until you drown by juvenile delinquent dolphins as an initiation to join an aquatic mammal gang.
07. Plastic shrapnel from the the exploding beach ball that you were blowing up becomes lodged in your brain.
08. The 98 lb. weakling that you tortured on the beach as a teenager returns for revenge and he has hired a personal trainer and taken lots of steroids.
09. Cardiac arrest after you reach your bikini/Speedo watching threshold.
10. You spontaneously develop a fatal allergy to sand.