Woman Marries Dolphin

Copyright 2006 W. Bruce Cameron — Please do not remove the copyright from this essay

According to a January 3rd 2006 AP news report, a woman from England named Sharon Tendler married a bottlenose dolphin named Cindy. No, you are reading it correctly: As ridiculous as it sounds, she married a human. In deference to Cindy, the wedding was held in the ocean off the coast of Israel, and by the end of the ceremony there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.

Guests described the whole thing as “not exactly your typical Jewish wedding.”

Naturally, this event has caused a considerable furor among socially conservative dolphins. “I’m not homo-sapiens-phobic, but marriage is supposed to be between a man porpoise and a woman porpoise. This human babe can’t even breathe through the top of her head,” snorted a spokes-mammal for the aquatic species. More liberal dolphins claim that what a husband and wife do underwater is their own business.

Humans like Sharon are thought to be nearly as intelligent as dolphins, with advanced language skills except for American high-school students. Training humans is pretty easy as long as the tricks are relatively simple, such as hand-feeding dolphins fish, or hand-feeding sharks hands. More complex tasks—such as eating a picnic at sea without tossing a bunch of plastic in the water—are generally considered beyond them.

This seems to be the first documented marriage between a human and a bottlenose, though in the movie King Kong Naomi Watts winds up with Adrian Brody. In the movie The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Don Knotts becomes a cartoon dolphin-like fish, which is less plausible than a giant ape named King Kong but probably more plausible than Naomi Watts falling for Adrian Brody.

Why would Cindy agree to marry such a poor swimmer? “She gives me herring,” explains Cindy. Humans from England are unable to cook pleasant-tasting food, so to them, herring is a real treat. Dolphins generally don’t like herring, claiming it tastes “too fishy.” Cindy, though, is a very unusual bottlenose dolphin, because she is actually a male.

Perhaps the gender confusion resulting from being a male named “ Cindy” lies behind the dolphin’s decision to wed someone not of his species. But if that’s the case, how do you explain “ Sharon?” (Though to be fair, I’ve been to England, and the place is rampant with gender confusion.)

Sharon originally spotted her future husband while snorkeling in the ocean. She swam over to him, and the longer she stayed with the bottlenose, the more her heart pounded. Love at first sight, or merely hypoxia? Apparently it was the former, though the two of them courted for nearly fifteen years, taking their time so they wouldn’t do anything foolish, like, marry a fish.

When Sharon finally decided to propose to the porpoise, she did it the old-fashioned way—by talking to Cindy’s trainer. (Many dolphins have human trainers as personal assistants.) The trainer agreed that it was time for Cindy to settle down, get married, and raise a family, though Sharon wasn’t exactly what he had in mind as the ideal wife. He finally consented when Sharon threatened to feed him herring.

Sharon wore a white veiled gown and all the women cried and said she looked beautiful, which only serves to demonstrate that when it comes to weddings, women have brain damage. It’s worth noting, though, that when Sharon threw the bouquet, none of the single women tried to catch it. In fact, the guests responded by throwing Sharon, tossing her in the ocean so that she would quit blasting them with herring breath.

According to the report, Sharon, a wealthy music promoter and clothing importer, executed a prenuptial agreement with her groom, though experts doubt the validity of the document because (a) Cindy didn’t have an attorney representing him, and (b) Cindy is a sea mammal.

A spokesperson for the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, when asked to comment about the marriage between Sharon and Cindy, said “Right, we so have time to worry about stuff like this.”

(In the above story, I may have fabricated a few quotes, but I promise you the part about the woman marrying Cindy the male dolphin is true.)

Write to Bruce.

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