When I was three years old, my parents were watching a black-and-white movie on TV, and I happened to wander in at the worst possible moment: Two guys were looking inside a wooden chest that contained an octopus, talking about whatever grown-ups looking at an octopus will talk about.
They opened the lid, and one of the octopus’ arms whipped out, striking one of the men in the face and holding on for a few seconds. They pried the creature’s arm off, which left behind several large suckers covering the guy’s face, making it hard to breathe. He was pulling at the suckers when the screen faded to black.
This scene scarred me forever, because I thought this was how octopi (or is it octopuses?) worked. They’ll smack you in the face, and you’ll suffocate under the suckers that get left behind.
Ever since then, I’ve been deathly afraid of encountering octopuses (also called octopodes) in the water, including fresh water lakes and indoor swimming pools. Even now, when I close my eyes, I can still see the scene that has haunted me for the last 55 years.
I was afraid of rampant octopi until I was ten, when Jaws replaced it in "Water Things That Will Kill Erik," but they didn’t replace octopi, they just nosed them out at the finish line.
Now, whenever I’m in the water, I have visions of octopi AND sharks reaching up from the depths to pull me underwater. Except now, they’ve joined forces and are working together to make a feast of me.
I’ve always played it safe and will never go out more than knee-deep in the ocean, but apparently that’s not enough.
Now, who’s being silly and unreasonable?
To make matters worse, scientists recently speculated that 60-foot, kraken-like octopuses lived in the ocean between 72 and 100 million years ago. Stupid scientists.
National Geographic detailed the research in the journal Science, and said they examined 15 fossilized octopus beaks from the Late Cretaceous period, and based on the size of the beaks, they speculate that the giant octopus could grow up to 18.2 meters, or 60 feet, in length.
Measuring beak size is a reliable indicator of a modern octopus’ dimensions, but other researchers — who are probably bitter at not being asked to participate in the study — told National Geographic that they feel the estimate is "quite extreme."
But I’m not so sure. Have you ever seen the size of a megalodon tooth? A megalodon could get up to 80 feet, so I’m not discounting the possibility of a 60-foot octopus.
To give you a sense of comparison, a modern giant Pacific octopus usually grows about 16 feet in total length.
But sixty feet? That’s 20 yards. That’s a six-story building. That’s a fire truck ladder. It’s a bowling lane. It’s two-thirds of the distance from home plate to first base. It’s twice as long as a London bus and three times as long as a giraffe. That’s 10 Erik Deckers standing on each other’s shoulders, or eight-and-a-half Shaquille O’Neals, or 12 Danny DeVitos.
And I don’t believe they’re extinct, no matter what the scientists say. I think they’re deeper down in the ocean than we’ve ever explored, and they’re just waiting for some nosy oceanographer to go poking around and make it mad so it comes to the surface and slips into my plumbing.
The scientists also believe the 60-footers ate sharks and mosasaurs, which are those creatures that look like a cross between a shark and an alligator.
Whether or not this is inaccurate, as the left-out scientists believe, it’s disconcerting. After all, sharks are hundreds of millions of years old, even older than trees, and now you’re telling me there was something that was eating them?
I was already terrified of octopodes, no thanks to that movie scene I watched. Now I have to be afraid of things that are not only ten times as big as me, they’re also smart enough to find their way into my toilet. They’re probably telling the sharks where to find me, too.
But no matter how bad it gets, there’s always someone looking for a way to make it worse. University of Alabama paleontologist Adiel Klompmaker, who was also not part of the study, questions whether the giant octopus was even the biggest thing in the ocean.
"I wonder what was living in the deeper parts of the oceans during the Cretaceous," he told National Geographic. "What's lurking out there that we have not discovered yet?"
I don’t know, but stop looking because you’re just going to make it mad. There’s already not enough room in my toilet.
Photo credit: Edmondlafoto (Pixabay, Creative Commons 0)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.