Son of a Beach

I just returned from 2.5 weeks at the beach. Most people would be jealous. Most people would kill to be in my shoes. Most people would salivate at that opportunity. But not me.

It was hell.

I just don't get people's fascination with the beach. I really don't. I have tried to figure it out. But I've got nothing. First of all, the sand. Goodness gracious, the sand. It is everywhere. And you shouldn't expect to walk down by the beach and be freed from it when you rinse your feet under those little water faucets. I did that. And I still had sand in my room, my shower, my bed, my teeth, and my hair. (I was scratching sand granules out of my scalp for days.) There is simply no getting rid of this stuff. It clings to you for life and finds its way onto parts of your body that leave you dumbfounded as to how it got there.

Second, the sun. And the lotion. I simply get tired of rubbing lotion over every square inch of my skin. That is a lot of surface space. Think about it. If you peeled off your entire skin covering and stretched it out, it would be quite a large canvas. And you have to cover EVERY square inch that is exposed. Cause if you don't, you get those terribly awkward sun burn patches. You know, those nice red splotches under your arms or on your shoulder blades. I know those splotches quite well. I had them for about 2 weeks. Furthermore, the lotion makes your skin sticky. There is nothing like lubbing up your entire body with adhesive and then walking out to a vast expanse of sand.

And then you have the actual ocean. You have the lovely combination of the unpredictable waves and the bitter saltiness of the water. This is why you see people who choose to go into the water rubbing their eyes as they exit. Salt water burns eyes. Ever accidentally swallowed any? It will clean out your sinuses faster than wasabi. And I haven't mentioned the sea shells that you step on, the sea weed that gets tangled around your legs, and the undeniable paranoia that accompanies swimming in water so dark that you can't see through it. Who knows what is swimming around me.

The ocean is a toilet. Literally. Millions of billions of fish are pouring their biological wastes right back into the water. And we are swimming in it. I must confess, on one of the few occasions that I found myself in the water, I urinated. And I know others have done the same. Perhaps that is why when the waves crash on the shore they are so sudsy.

The boiling sun, the sticky lotion, the splotchy sunburns, the salty-urine-ocean-water, the hotel room filled with wet towels and wet bathing suits and sand everywhere, the smell of dead fish, the wind that flaps the pages of the book you try to read, and bla bla bla. You can have it, friends. It is not for me.