The Life of a Sea Lion

When I was 13, I became a sea lion for about three weeks. That's what I want to tell you about today. I've kept it a secret for a long time because it was one of the more embarrassing times of my life, but it's time I come clean. I hope you can still respect me, even though you now know that I was once a sea lion.

I just woke up one day on a dock in San Francisco, and I was a sea lion. Though I wasn't expecting to become an animal two time zones away from my house, I wasn't that upset about it. I figured I'd just go with the flow, sit on the dock with the other sea lions. Once I adjusted to the fact that I was a sea lion, I figured I'd just spend my days resting on the dock and eating fish until maybe I'd turn back into myself. But life as a sea lion isn't that easy.

Apparently sea lions are responsible for the majority of car thefts along the whole West Coast. After about an hour of sitting around on the dock, one of the other sea lions spoke up. "Whose turn is it this week?" he said. I had no idea what he was talking about, but someone said, "It's Ninglemuffy's turn!" Someone else, presumably Ninglemuffy, said, "No, I stole the '95 Accord last week!"

It turned out to be my turn, of course. And how a sea lion steals cars without arms or legs is still beyond me. But I ended up pulling a guy out of his Saturn at a stoplight and taking the car. Drove it straight into the ocean, which is apparently what these guys do with the cars they steal. Since the ocean usually isn't clear, you can't tell, but there are something like 800 cars submerged in the San Francisco bay.

Three weeks later I woke up as myself. I explained it all to my brother and asked him if a sea lion had taken over my body for those weeks. He told me that I'd actually tried to become an Olympic speed skater. And truthfully, that wasn't too different from what I wanted to be all along.