Friends Don't Let Friends Wear That On The Beach
2005-06-21, 3:33 p.m.

OK, griping and depressing stuff being over and done with in the last entry, biodtl reminded us all of the need for the following public service announcement.

Attention average beachgoers:
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and no one beholds you as beautiful in that suit.
And a special note to the Northeastern guy in the Speedo: Don�t. Just, don�t.

Other requests/admonitions/anguished pleas:

If your physique is best described as �atrophied�, don�t wear a Speedo. Ditto if you are regularly mistaken for a Wookie.

If your belly burgeons over the groaning elastic of your bikini, chances are your suit doesn�t fit.

If you need to floss your butt, please do so in the privacy of your own home.

If you are a pasty white dude from Ohio, there�s a neat invention called �sunscreen�. Try it.

If you are 16 years old and openly sucking down Seagram�s, you will get nailed by the beach patrol, and if your parents (laughing because you were caught) gave you the booze, they should be shot.

The island�s only one mile long. You don�t have to play bocce on all of it. And I�m not moving for your stupid ball.

If your butt is twelve times larger than your nonexistent boobs, then a bikini does not morph you into Bettie Page.

I am so glad you worship the sun. You will make a great leather purse one day.

Unattended toddlers and riptides don�t mix. Get your sorry ass out there with your child.

And for teens: The beach has activities. You know, things to DO, where you MOVE AROUND instead of lying on your pot bellies in the sand aiming for melanoma when you reach the ripe old age of 30? There are recumbent bikes and kites and arcades and boogie boards and fishing and crabbing and even walking around the island being an annoyance. Move your body now, have fun, do stuff while you can and sleep it off when you�re 70. Geez.

June is beach month for Yankee Family Reunions From Hell and I got parked next to every one of �em, on the beach, right behind them on the reservation list at restaurants (party of TWENTY-SEVEN?!?), jammed my buggy through them in the aisle at Maul Mart because I needed a new pair of shorts. On the beach they gave my new glasses with the transition lenses a workout, because they weren�t just white, they were downright frosted. I had to plant my chair next to the Powder family. They had one or two renegades, most importantly Crocodile lady, who has seen one too many tanning beds and thought cellulite was best enhanced by a brown bikini. Behind sunglasses, the bikini blended into the tone of her hide and made a very disturbing image indeed. The other honkys were fine except for their disdain of sunscreen, and through my lenses I could make out some VERY bad sunburns. Happy medium, folks, you need to reach it. And every single one of them brought a bocce set. I have never played bocce. I have no idea what it is, except that you chuck colored balls across other annoyed people, stand over the balls discussing them very very seriously, then continue this pattern all the way up and down the beach for a couple of hours.

My favorite part of the beach comes afterwards, when it�s time go clean up, and I can partake of one of God�s Little Beach Blessings: the outdoor shower. Every beach house is on pilings, and nearly every one has a shower downstairs. Maybe it satisfies the junior nudist in me, being separated from glory by a few sheets of treated plywood and some hinges. Maybe it�s that the water pressure is set on sandblast and gives new meaning to �exfoliate�. Mainly, it�s the absence of the scourge of the steamed-up bathroom. I can not STAND emerging from the shower into a fog and trying to pound my slightly damp self into jeans. But being parboiled clean with no steamy residue? Heaven on a stick.

Tonight is Evening #2 of Vacation Bible School, so I have to go steel myself to peel Son off the video games and into something remotely educational. He is not thrilled, but I Will. Have. Two. Hours. Alone.

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