Nathonius

Do Mermaids Have Butts?

Do they?
This question has been plaguing my mind, like a swarm of unyielding locusts for the past few days. In reality, of course, the answer is quite simple: No. They don't because mermaids don't exist.

But(t) let us put that issue aside for a moment. If mermaids did exist, would they have butts? All the mermaids that I've seen in pictures and movies have had what I would term "implied lower extremities", meaning that their lower bodies look basically like the lower half of a (usually very slim and shapely) young woman, only with a shinny fin wrapped tightly around her legs. And since we're talking about a life form that is based entirely in fiction and fantasy, it's enough to know that a mermaid is basically a beautiful woman with a fin instead of legs that you only see in glimpses. And if you are a sailor dude and you are lucky enough to drown, maybe she will kiss you and breathe life back into you.

But the question became all too real for me recently. Yesterday I was walking alone on a quiet beach at sunset. I was humming to myself, as I am prone to do when I am alone, when out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed what I thought was a mermaid. I turned my head to look at her, fully expecting that she would vanish into the vastness of the ocean, yet to my surprise not only was she in full view, she was moving towards me. She flopped up to me rapidly, and shockingly ungracefully, and she said, "Hello." I talked with her for some time, cloaking my surprise with all the skill of an expert magician and weaving conversation topics from nonexistent threads. I sensed the conversation was turning sour when she stopped laughing at my witty references to the Little Mermaid movie, so I started remarking that it was getting late and that "I had better get going because I had to meet my wife for . . . a game of uno." Then, inexplicably, the mermaid looked at me, with a strained, teary expression, and she farted. I was at a loss. Should I just leave? Should I try to fart too to make the situation less awkward? It wasn't the kind of fart that you could pretend not to have heard and walk away from. It was loud and she was looking at me when she did it. In fact, she was still staring at me, which made everything all the more awkward.

And that was when the question struck me like a shaft of lightning. 'How did she just fart? Does she have a butt? because it looks to me like she just has one, shiny fin below her navel.' I could have ended the mystery simply by looking to see, but that would have been a little rude. If she did have a butt, she might think that I was looking at it, which I would be. And "I just wanted to see if you had one" doesn't sound like a very reasonable excuse. Meanwhile the mermaid had stopped looking at me and was gazing dreamily up at the sky; she said she liked to watch the stars come out. It wasn't a very easy note to get out of a conversation on, but I made it work. I said something like "stars make me thirsty" and left, presumably for a drink.

I was happy to get out of the increasingly awkward situation, but the aforementioned question has been haunting me ever since. I just don't know the answer. Maybe I never will. Maybe it doesn't matter. What do you think about this issue? Or for that matter any issue related to mermaids? I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks for enduring this incredibly long post.