Somewhere on Facebook, on a business page for a tour company, there's a photo of myself – shirtless, hairy chest exposed – smiling and wearing a snorkeling mask.
Not what the internet was created for.
I'd totally forgotten about the photo until my wife reminded me of it a couple of weeks ago. We were in the Caribbean and the opportunity to snorkel came up. She was eager to go but she told me, in no uncertain terms, that I should stay behind. Apparently, the last time we'd snorkeled together – on our honeymoon in Hawaii – I was a little too nervous to be in the water.
I would argue that I had every right to be nervous because it's unnatural for a person to be in the middle of an ocean for an extended period of time. It's also unnatural for a person to have a curvy rubber tube sticking out of their mouth to help them breath in the middle of an ocean for an extended period of time.
The funny thing is, I actually own a snorkeling set, with a mask, a tube and fins. I bought it during the Hawaii trip. It's sitting in the back of the closet, right next to my bobbleheads. I haven't touched it in four years. If you've never been to New York you might find this hard to believe, but there aren't many opportunities to snorkel around Manhattan Island.
Anyway, my wife brought up the shirtless photo as an aside. She wasn't there when it was taken. This was a few years before we married. I was in Australia, and I figured that if I was going to travel halfway across the world, I should see the greatest barrier reef in the world, the Great Barrier Reef. So I did, with a tour group.
Despite my inexperience and my skittishness in the water, it was a lot of fun. I saw things I'd never seen before. I saw a Nemo fish; I realize that it's really called a clownfish, but the leaders of the tour group actually called it a Nemo fish, which I appreciated because I can relate to wildlife much more easily when placed in the context of a Disney/Pixar movie.
Afterward I was sitting on a bench on the boat when one of the tour leaders asked me to pose for a photo. I still had my snorkeling mask on because it was a prescription mask and I didn't have my glasses readily accessible at that moment. Imagine reaching a point in life where you have to wear a prescription snorkeling mask to get by. In a foreign country, no less.
I didn't have my shirt on because I'd just come out of the water and I hadn't anticipated that a stranger would want a photo of myself without my shirt on.
I smiled for the camera, the photo was taken. Less than 24 hours later, the photo was posted to the tour company's Facebook page. I feel badly for a tour company that believes a photo of a shirtless, masked me would help business.
It would have been much better off just posting a photo of the Nemo fish.
