#1129 Muci-terranean

Cue the scary music. Something like the up-from-under, menacing, impending-doom sounds of Jaws.
Dunh-dunh duhn-dunh...
Now hold on to your icky reactors. Plug your ears if you don’t want to hear gross. And plug your nose if you don’t want to cause even more of... the Blob.
That’s right, the blob, creepy creature from 1950’s bad sci-fi movies. Evil mindless alien from outer space. Growing and growing, and absorbing everything in its path.
Well guess what? It turns out we don’t have to turn very far to find a homegrown variety of our own. And more than one. All over the oceans, festering waste matter and warming temperatures have caused the formation of giants globs of mucus-like concretions.
Blobs.
We thought we had it bad with a fecal-infested Capitol Lake. And we’re scared of estuaries because, you know, the word estuary does sound like it could involve mucus. “Yeah, I have a bad estuary in my sinuses.” Sounds like something you need to snort to the back of your throat.
But one thing’s certain. Someone needs to invent a giant tissue for the Mediterranean. They have it the worst. One blob there stretches 100 miles. You heard right, a one hundred mile loogie on the loose.
National Geographic News says these mucilaginous masses are “exploding in number and size” They are teeming with harmful viruses and bacteria. They can gum up the gills of fish. They can sink to the sea floor and smother everything underneath.
There’s a slimy death tailor-made for a horror flick. Pulled down to the seafloor, struggling in a gummy mass of goo, smothered under the blob.
Scientists call them sea-mucus blobs or mucilage. They are clumps of living and dead organic matter. If you swim through the blob, you can get a nasty rash.
Not to mention a severe case of the heebie-jeebies.
Cue the music.
Dunh-dunh duhn-dunh...
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.
It’s snot...
America, ya gotta love it.