We All Went to the Beach.
After my miserable Florida spring break mere months before, during which I never saw a beach, I started whining to Larry.
“I’m missing my whole life!” I said. “I want to go to the beach! We’re in Florida! That’s what people in Florida do!”
“What beach do you want to go to?” Larry asked. “There’s a fuckin’ ton of ’em!”
“Any beach!” I said. “I just want to put my toes in the sand and stare at the ocean.” I remembered from my childhood vacations that this was the female adult ritual while the men and kids splashed in the ocean.
So one day, we all went to the beach: me and Larry, and my new roommates Joe and Dave.
I got up around noon, as usual, and we headed out. Larry and I rode on the Harley, while Joe and Dave took the cooler in Dave’s truck. We got to Clearwater Beach in a matter of minutes.
Wearing jeans, boots and a tank top, I hopped off the bike and raced for the sand. I never wore socks so when I reached the sand, I pulled off my boots and ran onto the beautiful white-sand beach.
“Ooooooowwwwwwwwww!!!!” I screamed. The sand was incredibly hot. We were way too far from the water for me to cool off there, so I threw myself down and put my boots back on.
Larry, Joe and Dave caught up easily, carrying the cooler. It was a small cooler – only big enough to hold a six-pack – and no one had bothered to get ice. Our beers were already getting warm when we plopped down in the sand to “enjoy” them.
We didn’t bring towels.
Larry handed me a koozie. “You can’t have an open container here,” he said. “Put this on your beer or you’ll get arrested.”
No beer on the beach? Well, that was a bummer, but I wasn’t going to let it deter me from my beach day.
“Let’s go fuckin’ swimming!” I said, starting to pull off my jeans.
“You can’t do that!” Larry shrieked. “Ya gotta have a fuckin’ swimsuit to swim!”
He remembered that I didn’t wear underwear; I’d forgotten it mattered. “I can’t go in the water?”
“Not unless you want to go in wearing jeans,” Larry chuckled.
Adult ritual or not, I wasn’t going to just sit on the blazing hot sand. I wanted to be in that ocean. So I pulled off my boots again and raced toward the water as fast as I could, carrying my koozie’d beer, trying to avoid all the “hot” on the Florida beach in June.
I stood in the water and stared toward what I thought was Europe; I had no idea I was in the Gulf of Mexico.
I stood and stared, alone, while the saltwater cooled my feet and dampened my jeans. As my feet sunk into the sand, I willed myself to be swallowed whole.
It didn’t happen.
After what seemed like an hour but was probably three minutes, my beer was gone. I strolled back to the guys to get another one. Joe and Dave were squabbling; Larry was smoking a cigarette and ignoring them.
I opened the cooler and pulled out one of the two remaining beers. It was not cold.
“We need more beer,” I said to Larry.
“Not here,” he said. “There’s a bar right over the bridge when you’re ready.”
With Joe and Dave still arguing, I cracked the beer. The warm liquid foamed over my hand.
“I’m ready,” I said.
And that was the end of our day at the beach.