Monster Shark Tournament

“Mermaids and Giant Squids! Fish of all ages! Welcome to this years 400 millionth annual Monster Shark Tournament! Our two finalists today have had to endure the toughest challenges known to shark kind: protect a treasure chest of gold in an old, sunken pirate ship from human explorers and breaking into a shark proof cage! Our first finalist passed the treasure chest challenge with flying colors! Not only was he able to keep pestering humans at bay for five minutes, he even managed to scare away a giant octopus! Introducing Hulk!”

A giant shark enters the arena. He stares at all the sea dwellers in the stands. He opens his mouth, and everyone covers their ear holes, expecting a magnificent roar from the treasure protector. But instead of a deafening roar erupting from the huge jaws, a deafening cry rings out. The Hulk was afraid!

The announcer hesitates a moment before continuing on with the introduction of the second finalist. “Well, um, seems all this excitement has gotten The Hulk a little upset. Don’t worry, fish! Once he gets back out in the playing field, he’ll be his terrifying self again!” The announcer coughs and tries to get refocused on the task at hand. “And now, to introduce our last finalists, the shark who broke into a shark proof cage, Melvin!”

The crowd bursts out laughing as the tiniest shark that any of them had ever seen enters the arena.

A clown fish in the stands yells, “Hey, shorty! What tournament did you enter, the monster shrimp tournament?”

In a blink of an eye, Melvin is on the fish. “Just ‘cause I’m small don’t mean I can’t eat you in half a bite.” And he wasn’t exaggerating; Melvin had teeth that could have created the hole in the Titanic to make it sink. “And just ‘cause you’re a clown fish don’t make you funny!”

A pair of giant sea turtles come and drag away the still cursing Melvin back to the center of the arena.

“The final challenge to determine who is the monster shark of the year is Beach Mayhem! Whoever creates the most chaos at a party beach in Florida in under one minute wins these grand prizes…”

A mermaid comes out carrying a trophy and a pair of human swimming trunks.

“The title of this years Monster Shark and an all you can eat buffet at the beach! The only rules are: no attacking beaches in the Miami area. We had some complaints from the officials there, something about ruining business. No attacking a beach with less than one hundred visitors, and don’t get shot. On my whistle, three… two… one…” The announcer blows the whistle and the two monster shark finalists’ head out.

“Oh my. Oh dear. What am I going to do?”

“What are you mumbling about, Hulk?”

“I can’t do this Melvin! I’m no monster shark!”

Melvin laughs a little, remembering how Hulk entered the arena in tears. “Yeah, you ain’t no monster. I’m not even real sure you’re a shark!” Melvin burst out laughing.

“My daddy says I’m not a shark.” Hulk starts crying again. “That’s why he signed me up for this! He said if I didn’t come back as the monster shark of the year, not to come back at all!”

“Oh get a grip! You haven’t even left home yet? No wonder your old man say’s you ain’t a shark.”

“He says it’s because I’m a vegetarian.”

Melvin chokes on some salt water. “What! A vegetarian! There is something wrong with you.” Melvin swims away, leaving Hulk in his sadness. “Yuck! A vegetarian. It’s guys like him that give sharks a bad name!”

Melvin reaches his beach first, a crowded beach with lots of young, drunk teenagers on spring break, the perfect place to start his rampage. Melvin creeps slowly towards the crowd of people, playing the jaws theme song on his portable radio. He swims closer and closer, until he’s right under them. “Stupid humans, can’t they hear the ominous music?” The humans do hear something, however it’s not Melvin’s ominous music. It’s an old song from the Backstreet Boys. The teenagers start screaming. They cover their ears and run out of the water. Marvin looks around in shock and finds Hulk a little to his left dancing with a portable radio playing the song that drove away the humans. Cheers erupt from behind the two monster shark contestants, and a group of groupers swim up and lift Hulk up on their backs. The announcer and mermaid walk tantalizingly slow towards Hulk, and, as they pass by the gaping Melvin, hand the trophy to Hulk.

“Well done Hulk, you have won this years 400 millionth annual Monster Shark Tournament. Take your trophy and your pick of humans!”

Hulk takes his trophy, but looks at Melvin and says, “Melvin tried just as hard as I did. He can have the all you can eat buffet.”

“No thanks, Hulk. I think I’ll just have a nice tofu burger.”