If you google “will mermaids take over our jobs” you will, in fact, find a slew of mermaid job opportunities.

I thought it was important you know this. Because Professional Mermaid is a thing.

Mehgan Heaney-Grier trying out a new style of swim fin in the waters of the Florida Keys. (Creative Commons)

I was recently out to coffee with a friend who had heard about a documentary (later outed as a docufiction) called Mermaids: The Body Found. It aired on both Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel. You can see film clips about mermaid sightings, their evolution, and history here.

Or you can look on YouTube and find the whole thing – but I’m not responsible, related to, or acquainted with whoever put it there.

I think the show’s worth a watch, if you can get past the narrator referring to them as “underwater apes”. That’s as bad as calling a tyrannosaurus rex a “big lizard.”

But this story gets better.

During its US premiere, Mermaids: The Body Found received 1.9 million views, the largest the network had seen in six years.

A vast majority of those viewers missed the teeny tiny, somewhat hidden disclaimer behind this mockumentary, and believed that shit WAS REAL.

As a result, thousands of people started writing letters to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration demanding action.

What if the mermaids started eating all our shrimp and caused a food shortage?

What if they were after OUR JOBS? 

Artwork by Heather Hertzel

Okay, timeout.

In what bored, cubicle-trapped mind, would you fear that of all the possible things that could possibly happen, MERMAIDS swarming the workforce, overtaking your career, would be something worth writing an angry letter about?

Like a pack of mermaids are gonna scuba their way inside the nearest factories and corporations and start mass applying for jobs with 401k plans?

Or like, you’ll be in a video store with your family, looking for a movie to watch, when suddenly the clerk shouts out from her tank behind the register that ‘Free Willy’ is her pick of the week and she highly recommends it?

Do you know that only 36% of the population even voted in the last federal election?

We can’t remember to vote for the bi-pedal humans that LEAD us, but we’ve got time to get pissed off about mermaids?!

Wait for it, it continues to get better.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration got so many letters that they issued a statement. And in that statement, they said that mermaid migration leading to infiltrated job opportunities was not a concern of theirs as 1) mermaids aren’t real and 2) if it ever DID happen, it’d be a problem for immigration, so please stop writing them letters about mermaids.

This is too rich. I mean, this story is like eating a decadent cheesecake. Or a crab cake. Either way, I want another bite.

While researching mermaids (and finding the definitive proof they exist, but I don’t have time to talk about that today), I also found these gems.

• Plan your next vacation at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park – Home of the Weeki Wachee Mermaids
• Check out Tears of a Mermaid, the short film starring Hannah Fraser, who works to promote education and conservation of ocean life. She took a unique approach to not just deep dive, but dance, with one of the deadliest ocean predators, the Tiger Shark.
• Another ocean conservationist and entertainer is Mermaid Melissa. You can even hire her for parties!
• Watch the trailer for Funny or Die’s latest Sophia Coppola film, The Little Mermaid

What do you think? Are mermaids real?
And will they take over our jobs?

*****

Last but not least, this week is the final #Keanuthon countdown.

We had a great time watching The Matrix last wednesday. Hop on the hashtag #Keanuthon to see all the fun!

This week we’re watching Constantine, one of my favorite Keanu Reeves movies. He plays John Constantine, a man who has “been to hell and back.” He’s on a mission to prove himself. Co-starring another favorite actor of mine, Rachel Weisz, together they team up to solve the mystery of her twin sister’s untimely death.

I hope you join us for one more round! I’m looking forward to it!

Hubby and I are thinking of hosting a scary movie marathon in October.
Interested in joining us for a #ScreamingScreening?