Woolly Mammoth and Family Sighting At Ocean City Beach
By David Drury
In a moment of profound mental
weakness my wife and I decided today to go to the beach. We were on vacation in Ocean City (motto: "near Atlantic City but with 75% less
sin") which is in New Jersey (motto: "not normally a vacation destination"). We are not beach-types really but since we
were on vacation, and not in the
This was during our lapse into
mental weakness, because we had our two pre-school children with us (motto: "Give 'em
Hell Sister!"). It must have
taken a whole lot of those 75% less sin Ocean City drugs to get us that high!
I watched as one couple went to the
beach from our parking lot. The guy (I
call him "Buck") wheeled into the lot with his suburbs wheels and his
inner-city music and screeched the brakes a bit. Buck's girl (I call her "Veronica")
tottered out of the passenger while the car still rocked, from his halting stop
or the stereo I do not know. Veronica
carried all she needed in one arm... towel and suntan lotion. Sunglasses were already on her head. I could see that she also wore a bathing suit
"underneath." She had on about
the top 7% of what used to be a full pair of jeans. The top 3% was also cut off for more proper
hip ventilation, I'm guessing. The
pockets "inside" hung down lower than the shorts. Her shirt had a similar fashion sense.
Buck must have already spent several
months at the beach because his shirtless skin had the appearance of ornately
tattooed and stained woodwork. And he was roughly the size of a chest of
drawers, now that I think of it.
Speaking of chests -- his had no hair on it at all! Unless he was a 6'3" pre-pubescent
13-year-old with pecks the size of my head, I'm thinking Buck has two razors in
the sink.
I and my "girl" and our
two "ankle-biters," as we affectionately call them, looked somewhat
different than these two unloading from our reliable Ford Taurus. First of all, one child needs to have at
least 27 "sippy cup" drinks per hour. This is in the winter. While motionless. In the summer while strolling an 80°
boardwalk a fire truck must follow us
around with hoses in order to re-supply his insatiable thirst. I'm just kidding here.
Actually, the hoses are directly attached to his face.
The other child has been in a
"growth spurt" since roughly, say, about the time she was born. This means that she eats far more than the
other three of us put together. It is
amazing what this dainty little girl can pack away. I've seen her slam a cheeseburger at 10
months old faster than a professional football player. She must be doing some kind of scientific critical
mass experiments with her internal organs involving a pyloric black-hole or
something. From our standpoint the
numbers just don't add up -- and by numbers I mean, "poopy diapers."
Because the "ankle-biters"
are in need of these vast quantities of food and drink my official role in the
family is: "pack mule." I'm
like the family mascot "Daddy" that carries all the crap around with
an inhuman but adorable look in his eye that says, "Help me." While carrying our burdens to the boardwalk
from the parking lot the bald-chested stud and the 7%
blue jeans girl looked on me with pity -- as if to say sing a John Mellencamp song in my direction while making a mental note
to hold on to 16 for as long as they can, because the ankle-biters are on the
way!
Once we had dutifully walked the
entire boardwalk, which ended somewhere close to Maryland, we turned back and
determined that an afternoon at the beach would be relaxing after our aimless
walk. Here is the point where our
insanity must have taken hold. We forged
on and found a place in the massive beach that seemed very far from other
people. This is important when you have
preschoolers -- because even though everyone will still hate you for bringing
your screaming brats within earshot of them, you will be unable to make out the
expressions on their faces or their mutterings about you.
My first task as official family
mascot pack mule was to erect the tent.
Now, most couples simply throw down a towel and begin with their
well-greased sun-worship. I bet Veronica
had a single button on her person that removed her 7% outer clothing in one
switch enabling her to maximize the sun's rays.
I'm sure Buck just did pushups all afternoon—adding another layer of
lacquer to his bronzed back. We,
however, needed to erect some kind of place to shield our children from the
sun—and for them to take a nap. Now, on
both of these counts you can see the effects of the 75% less sin drugs. On the one hand, if we wanted to shield our
children from the sun, we had no reason in the world to take them to a
BEACH! On the other hand, all research
has proven that no child under the age of 4 has EVER, since the Paleolithic
era, taken a nap at the time and in the place where their parents want them to.
So the tent was a senseless bad
idea. However, the pack mule had drug it
all the way to the beach and mindlessly erected it. Once the tent was up, I noticed we were the
only people on the beach with a full camping tent. You might have seen this coming. But I, being raised by hippies, always keep a
tent in my car and think nothing of popping it up wherever and whenever. However, the local beach people of Ocean
City, New Jersey stared at us with great confusion. They thought we were homeless people. When I sat down with an empty sippy cup in my hand a guy dropped a dollar bill in it
looking at me as though to say, "Here's hoping
your luck changes, buddy." I, the
pack-mule, could only respond with my adorable "help me" look. He then put in another dollar.
But seriously, we were looking a
little strange. However, these
sun-worshipping Ocean City people didn't know the worst of it. I still
had my shirt on. Being at the beach
and since it was so hot I could fry an egg on my sunglasses; I thought I’d take
my shirt off. Buck's was off already in
his car—so why not me too? The problem
is that my physique was not intended for shirtlessness. I have three problems in fact:
These three factors combine to give
my shirtless self the appearance of a half sun-burned half blinding-white
woolly mammoth with the mange.
Right at the point when I removed my
shirt a girl strolled through our carefully plotted screaming brat revenge
perimeter and put down her towel not 10 yards from us. She also had a one-button clothing removal
device like Veronica. My wife was
thinking, "Oh, great... Now my husband is going to look at this little skank instead of me."
Instead, I was actually thinking that the girl was closer in age to my
daughter than to me. I also couldn't
believe she was doing something with her top that, while certainly being more
conducive to full-body tanning, still did not communicate "75% less
sin" to I or my children. I promptly took my daughter into our homeless
shelter and gave her a lecture on proper attire for young ladies. Since she is only 14 months old I think I
caught her in time to make a difference.
In a courageous battle against preschool peer pressure I believe she
said, "I'll never dress like that Daddy!" What she actually said was, "Goo blah bleg lickka
lickka."
My wife later interpreted this as, "Daddy, can I climb on your
belly-mountain?"
David
Drury is a writer and pastor from West Michigan
He
can be reached at: [email protected]
/ 616-935-9830
OR
15235
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Lake, Michigan 49456
©2004 David Drury
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