22 May—The good news today comes from Summerland Key, one of the 1,700 islands comprising the Florida keys, which is almost as far from the Florida mainland as Key West. It seems that last Friday evening, at around eight o’clock, an unidentified 35-year-old man was fishing off a dock identified as being on Flagship Drive and evidently hooked a shark whose personal details are unavailable at this time.

While the poor shark was waiting on the dock for its cruel and inhumane execution or unnatural death by suffocation due to collapse of its gill arches, it was able to take a bite out of the fisherman’s foot. Fantastic!

The fisherman was flown to Jackson South Medical Center in Miami, so we can surmise the wound was not insignificant. Unless, of course, all the medical service providers were merely drumming up business for themselves, which, like upcoding, is a common practice these days.

The specific pedal location and extent of the fisherman’s injuries are among the details that haven’t been released and may never be, because of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). And because they’re really none of our business anyway.

Even if the poor shark was thrown back into the Atlantic Ocean as a reward for its newsworthy nip, it probably would have died from shock or, being considerably weakened, been done in by other sharks, which, like politicians, are known to be cannibalistic.

In all events, the shark (likely of blessed memory) deserves the thanks and congratulations of fish everywhere . . .