Sunday, January 24, 2010

Swimming with the Swans: A Mermaid Tale

I’m back again with the third installment of The Mermaid Tales. As a mermaid, I swam with fish, clowns, other mermaids, pigs, ducks and swans.

Okay, I hear all of you oohing, swans, they’re so pretty. And they are. You see them floating like white clouds, long necks dipping for a sip of cool water as they swim along. So beautiful. So peaceful.

Clearly you have never been a mermaid. Swans are mean little buggers, maybe not intentionally, but I tell you, the mermaids did not like the swans.

During one part of the show called the Picnic, the mermaids would swim out from the volcano and use their air hoses to raise the lily pads. The lily pads, once upright, were about ten to fifteen feet tall.

Then each of us would sit on a lily pad, wave at the audience in the submarine, and take off our face masks (so they could see our lovely faces). Keep in mind that when you take off your face mask under water, you can’t see squat. And that’s when the swans would come. Silently paddling, watching us from above. (Can you hear the shark music?)

Now, I don’t know whether they were looking for fish or worms or algae or what, but they loved to settle in above us, reach down their long necks and try to rip the floating hair right out of our skulls.

We’re trying not scream (yes, you can scream underwater), keep our face mask on our lap, hold onto the picnic bag and the air hose, and smile. All while ducking and trying to stop our hair from floating upward to within reach of the swans.

Now, I like swans, just not above me.

Management eventually moved the swans out to the river.

And my hair eventually grew back.

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29 comments:

  1. I've never had swans but I had geese for a short term of terror. If my husband de jour let them out of their pen in the morning I was trapped in the farmhouse. I could barely make it to grab the mail and run back to the house before they'd be on the attack. But hey, we ate them so that was that!
    Thanks for another installment. I love these stories, Helen! And like an addict, I want more!!!

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  2. I love your mermaid stories! I've been chased by geese and even ducks before (ducks who are nesting are not very patient with intruders), but never a swan. Sounds scary! AND you're in the water, which is THEIR turf.

    I think you need some mermaids in that novel you're working on...

    Elizabeth
    Mystery Writing is Murder
    Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen

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  3. I love this acquatic fable!!! Fun, fun, fun!

    When I used to live by the water, we'd feed the ducks and the swans. Swans a bigger and they are damned fiesty ... they'd grab the food meant for the ducks!

    Cheers, Jill

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  4. Oh My I cannot imagine protecting your hair from a swaggering swan and keeping the illusion of control- all with a smile on your face!!

    this blog needs pictures- though I can practically see it anyway

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  5. LOL, loved this. I used to think swans, because they are such beautiful looking creatures, were sweethearts.

    NOT!

    Ornery, aggressive little monsters, that's what they really are. I once got ran off a beach by a bunch of 'em for getting to close, trying to be friendly.

    Marvin D Wilson

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  6. LOL, loved this. I used to think swans, because they are such beautiful looking creatures, were sweethearts.

    NOT!

    Ornery, aggressive little monsters, that's what they really are. I once got ran off a beach by a bunch of 'em for getting to close, trying to be friendly.

    Marvin D Wilson

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  7. The hilarious memories that you have, which were NOT funny at the time. I can't imagine all that you had to go through and not drown!

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  8. From my point of view, swans were aggressive, but, truth be told, I was invading what they considered their territory. And I imagine my hair did look like floating yummies. Once they moved the swans from the show area into the river, they were quite elegant looking.

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  9. Ouch, don't think I'll look at swans quite the same way anymore. :) Love your mermaid tale, looking forward to the next chapter.

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  10. Har. That's actually quite hilarious.

    Geese are like that too, but swans are definitely worse.

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  11. Did you ever read Adrianne Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction? Mr. Mole has quite a time with the swans in the parking lot of his flat. That combined with your very entertaining mermaid makes me wary of swans.

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  12. I think perhaps swans are better through a camera lens than up close and dangerously personal.

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  13. What wonderful stories you tell. There is actually an event called Swan Upping in England where they go out in row boats and count all the swans on the river Thames. It's quite an event with the oarsmen wearing full regalia. Swans in England belong to the Queen.
    Ann

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  14. Hilarious!! You've painted a great image :)

    Swans - and Canadian Geese - are both such beautiful birds, but they can be nasty close up!

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  15. Cozy in Texas, I'm sure the Queen's swans are much more refined with good manners than here in the States. ;-)

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  16. Swans. Hilarious! They are so deceptive...Hmmmm...Feel a book title coming on?

    Michele
    SouthernCityMysteries

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  17. There were swans on the lake at my college. The lake comes right up to the edge of the dining hall. In the spring, especially, folks would get extra bread and take it to the lake's edge (a stone wall there, so at least the swans couldn't get on the ground to chase us easily!) to feed the cute little signets following their gorgeous parents. Swans aren't even nice to their own babies, trust me on this! It was pretty cool to watch them run half the length of our 30 acre lake to take off, though. Thanks for the great story, Helen!

    Lynda Sappington

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  18. Swans are mean! I had one bite me before.

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  19. Lynda, perhaps swans know about tough love?

    Michele, no book at this point. Just reminiscing.

    Alex, sorry for the bite, but you made me laugh.

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  20. You painted a perfect picture. Loved it!

    Swans are nasty little buggers. Delightful to look at from afar though :)

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  21. Everyone's comments are so funny. I also remembered being terrified as a child of my uncle's water fowl. Some birds like geese and peacocks make excellent watchdogs(birds).
    But mostly everyone's stories remind of Alfred Hitchcock. Perhaps that's why his movie The Birds was so successful. We all know those cute little feathered things are actually out to get us.

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  22. I remember that Hitchcock movie. I don't think anyone was scared of birds before that came to theaters.

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  23. Oh what an image of these aggressive swans! Maybe they saw all you beautiful mermaids and were thinking, "gotta make sure our guys don't get any ideas!"

    That's why they tried to rip your hair off. :)

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  24. Enjoyed the story, Helen. Swans, like geese and peacocks can be so beautiful to look at, but they are all nasty, aggressive birds. Our neighbor has geese that take over the road sometimes and they often will not move when a car comes along. They stand there, stretching their necks and squawking like mad. I have been stuck for five minutes or more as they will not move if I inch forward.

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  25. Maryann, I'd be a little wary of letting kids out around the geese.

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  26. I'm laughing my head off. Have to check out the previous post. I like many aquatic animals. Swans have too many admirers. It's good you put them down a bit.

    Really Angelic

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  27. I've been dreaming about being a mermaid lately. My hair keeps receding...? Swans!

    I can tell my daughter I know a mermaid now.

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  28. I've been dreaming about being a mermaid lately. My hair keeps receding...? Swans!

    I can tell my daughter I know a mermaid now.

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  29. Yikes! I never thought about swans being agressive. I've been chased by a goose. Now THOSE are some mean birds!

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