Ah Memorial Day weekend...the official opening of summer when everyone and their brother is out trying to have the time of their life. I like a long weekend as much as anyone, although for a stay-at-home Mom, weekends don't differ much from weekdays. The traffic going down to the CT shoreline beaches was long and winding when I went zooming past it, going in the opposite direction, earlier today. CT beaches are not very big (mind you I'm comparing them to Long Island beaches, such as Jones Beach, so maybe to say they are not that big is unfair). In any case, they will be packed this weekend will all those who MUST be at the beach the day it friggin opens.
We were chatting with my parents at the dinner table last night about the beach. I've concluded that there are several stages of "beach going" we all experience as we go through life.
The first stage is Beach as a Kid (BK for short). BK is the best stage. Your only jobs are to put on your bathing suit, and once at the beach, make sure your parents don't get an ounce of peace. Between running back and forth to the water, trips to the bathroom, asking for snacks, begging for ice cream and looking for beach toys, this is a full day's worth of work. And let's not forget asking your mother for the time every 50 seconds during the mandatory "30-minute after eating before you can return to to the water" waiting period. Whoever came up with this did herself, and every other parent, a great disservice.
Then there's the Beach as a Young Adult (BYA). BYA is lots of fun because basically, you grab a towel, a swim suit, and a cooler full of beer and get in the car and go. You plop down on beach, drink beer, and pass out in the sun, while getting a tan. During the BYA phase, you likely look very good in your bathing suit and strut around proudly during your trips to the ocean to cool off. Also, the trip to the beach is merely the start of the day at this point...there's more partying later on in the evening and into the night.
And then there's the Beach as Parents stage (BP). This stage is fairly tiresome and not for the faint of heart. The night before, you search frantically among the Christmas decorations, Halloween costumes, and Valentine's Day cards for the beach stuff. This includes, but is not limited to: beach chairs for everyone, huge umbrella, at least one towel per person, coolers, sunscreen, hats, bathing suits, flip flops, sand toys, Frisbees, floats, swim vests, etc. Then one has to pack all of this into two small bags because 2 adults can only carry so much.
In the morning one adult has to load all this crap into the car, while the other feverishly dresses the children, packs the lunch, fills the cooler, feeds them breakfast, lathers them with sunscreen, and gets them into the car. After sitting in traffic forever, listening to "ARE WE THERE YET?", and paying $10 for parking, the parents must unload the children, all the gear, and then schlep all the gear to find a spot. Since you are probably late, you get to squeeze between a family with screaming infant triplets and some BYA's with their music blaring. (Next, see BK paragraph above for all the things the kids do at the beach that you now get to endure.) And when the day's done, you get to schlep that same gear, plus your sunburned, sand-covered children, back to the car. When you get home Mom usually throws the kids in the tub while Dad rinses off all the sand and cleans out the car. Doing this once is enough to make you never want to see the ocean again.
I imagine there's a fourth stage, the Beach as a Retired person stage (BR).BR is probably almost as good as BYA, except you have coffee to drink and likely have a tent over your bathing suit. You can sit in peace, maybe take a dip in the water, and get the hell out of there as soon as the BP's come.
Here's to another summer...
