Watching “Jaws” for the first time in the movie theater when I was a kid…I ran out to the bathroom and was suddenly so afraid to pee in the toilet for fear a shark would make it’s way into the theater pipeline, to the bathroom, to my stall, pop out and bite me in the ass.
A new fear in America rose from just a few single cords of music. (Shot that way, all because the real mechanical shark wouldn’t work that day of shooting.) A mistake turned genius,changing the way movies are shot so to hold the audience capture from just sound. Not to mention scare the crap out of us.
To this day I’m still scared of swimming in the ocean for fear of running into one.
All the native Californians say, “The odds of running into a shark in our waters are so slim.” Then slowly sharks were ‘seen’ off our little beach here in Manhattan Beach. Then one day, my son’s Jr. Guard class was pulled from their ocean class due to shark sightings. Cue the Jaws music as Moms across our little town went into a panic. (Do you ever think what’d we all be like if “Jaws” was never made?)
Sadly this year a man fishing off our local pier caught a shark and as the shark struggled for at least 30 minutes, some men were swimming by. The angered shark was trying to get loose and chomped onto one of the swimmers while many people heard and watched. (See 14 year old recounting below of his experience) Thankfully the man was dragged out of the water and was damaged but okay.
Olddly enough, a few weeks later, I just happened to be with my husband and kids at the beach when a man stopped near us. A different man asked, “How’s the bite?” and the man who stopped lifted his shirt and showed this nasty scar. “No!” I thought to myself. Is this the guy who was bit a few weeks ago? YES! I begged for a photo and 
Rick Flores (shark-bite-man) laughed pulled up his shirt again and “snap!” my hubby clicked the photo of my youngest, myself and now famous shark bite man!
My older son’s friend Sammy was actually at the beach (IN THE WATER) at the time of the shark biting and sent out the following notice to his friends later that day.
Scary.
Still not swimming. 