I was perusing the headlines today, looking for something to write about but everything seemed it fit in the same broad category of  “insane Republicans do shitty thing because they’re insane and shitty.” How many times can I respond to the GOP’s manufactured freakout about Critical Race Theory? Do I really feel like explaining that it’s not nice to screw black farmers out of loan forgiveness or issue death threats to election workers? How many times must I note that the GOP is suppressing votes based on entirely phony predicates? Am I interested in pointing to another cop who stormed the Capitol because he believed in bunk conspiracy theories? Is it a surprise that the Republicans are so divorced from reality at this point that they don’t even want to let the networks air their presidential primary debates in 2023 and 2024?

But, then I saw that a Massachusetts lobsterman was swallowed whole off Cape Cod by humpback whale. And he survived to describe his ordeal.

“All of a sudden, I felt this huge shove and the next thing I knew it was completely black,” Packard recalled Friday afternoon following his release from Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. “I could sense I was moving, and I could feel the whale squeezing with the muscles in his mouth.”

“I was completely inside; it was completely black,” Packard said. “I thought to myself, ‘there’s no way I’m getting out of here. I’m done, I’m dead.’ All I could think of was my boys — they’re 12 and 15 years old.”

Outfitted with scuba gear, he struggled and the whale began shaking its head so that Packard could tell he didn’t like it. He estimated he was in the whale for 30 to 40 seconds before the whale finally surfaced.

“I saw light, and he started throwing his head side to side, and the next thing I knew I was outside (in the water),” said Packard, who lives in Wellfleet.

His buddy scooped him up and took him to shore, and then he went to the hospital where he was treated for nothing more serious than some soft tissue injuries.

Most likely, the whale couldn’t see what it was eating and scuba gear just wasn’t that tasty. The odds of this happening are almost zero, and the odds of surviving must be less than that.

Best of all, I can’t even blame stupid or insane people for this, so it doesn’t put me in a soul-deadening malaise.

And it’s in the newspapers, so there’s a chance his grandkids will believe him when he tells this story.