My Thoughts On The Beach And Summertime Fun

For nearly 20 years, I have vacationed with my wife’s or my extended family to the Carolina’s to go to the beach.  Every year I pack a dozen or so movies from my collection and proceed to hold-up inside the house, condo, or whatever other air-conditioned room we rent for the week. Why? Because my vacation consists of sitting on the couch and watching said movies while avoiding the beach itself as much as possible.

The Beach

Now I don’t hate the beach entirely, I actually love swimming. If I had daily access to a swimming pool or other body of water safe for year-round aquatic frolicking, I would probably be in much better shape than I am now. I also enjoy, to a point, building sandcastles or other such structures and sand art. Most importantly, I enjoy being with and spending time with my family (both my family and my in-laws). I’m kind of old school in the fact that I hold family above most everything else, and I’m willing to admit that, but that is for another post and another time. The point I reach that I can no longer enjoy these things is when one or more of the reasons for me hating the beach to begin with becomes too much for me to bear, forcing me to retreat back to my video addict ways.

The Sun

The first of these things I hate is the sun… my mortal enemy. The sun represents several things I just cannot stand: daytime, heat, and happiness. I’m not talking about hating all happiness in a goth/emo type of way; I’m talking about the overly cheerful, in-your-face, peppy, giddy, valley girl cheerleader, daytime talk show host type of happiness that makes a normal person want to rip their ears off so they don’t have to listen to it anymore. Is it too much to ask for a few clouds to break things up? After all, “into every life, a little rain must fall”, as the saying goes. To paraphrase Mr. Smith from The Matrix, humans define themselves by their pain and misery. If everything is sunshine and lollipops, then everything becomes boring, bland, and annoying. You need the night to appreciate the day. I, however, to take myself literally, prefer the night.

The Heat

The second reason I hate the beach is the heat. I am built for cold weather survival. In the intense heat, my systems begin failing and shutting down. I lose my appetite (I know, I know… I could stand to skip a few meals anyway right?), I start sweating profusely, and I turn slow(er) and sluggish. I often think there is a chance I am a cold-blooded animal. The fact that it took almost an hour to drain a pint of blood last time I donated contributed to that theory. Either that or I just have so much fat and cholesterol that my blood is the consistency of homemade gravy. Regardless, me and high temperatures do not get along well. I much prefer the dead of winter, several feet of snow, and a negative sign in front of the temperature.

The People

The final and the most important reason I hate the beach is my number one pet peeve on this world… people. Family, a few chosen friends, and most coworkers aside, people annoy me to the point that I believe it should be legal to cleanse the world of their existence to preserve the survival of the fittest. To quote yet another movie (see, I told you I was a video addict), Tommy Lee Jones stated in Men In Black “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.” To expand on that, people are also untrustworthy, greedy, uncaring, dirty, immoral, and unethical. They are thieves, drug addicts, rapists, and con artists that are smart enough to dupe you into letting them take what is yours but so dumb that any attempt to hold a meaningful conversation will result in your being driven insane from stupidity.

In Summary

So until I can convince the fam that Juneau Alaska is better than Myrtle Beach South Carolina, I’ll continue to spend my vacation relaxing indoors while they all somehow squeeze a good time out of the beach. I actually delve into my idea of great vacations in another post, which you can read here.