Pepper, vacation edition
- Evening walks on the boardwalk can be pleasant, and they can be maddening. Mostly they're maddening on account of the hormone fueled boys weaving in and out of the foot traffic, drawing attention at every possible turn. And, for as much as I'd like to throw one of them like a javelin into the ocean, I have to admit that these early teen runts understand what I never have: what matters is being noticed. Whether it's good or bad attention is irrelevant, so long as the warm glow of the spotlight is yours. On a boardwalk bench, a small group of boys in their early teens are playing acoustic guitars and serenading passers-by. They've attracted a small harem of similarly-aged girls, who have taken up seats on the tops of the benches, creating the impression of poor man's stadium seating. Two chords and a lousy voice never went so far. Still, I must admit that if it gets you to second or third base, that's not such a bad life for a high school freshman.
- At the North end of the beach, the boardwalk narrows and the overhead lights become less frequent, less intrusive. There's a mother and a daughter walking in front of me, far enough that I can hear their voices but not discern their words. The daughter's rocky teenage years stretch before both of them, but for now she hasn't yet concluded that her mother knows nothing, and they're having a pleasant conversation. There's a smattering of people in front of them, and the density of bodies grows steadily as the distance to the center of town decreases. It's an interesting visual, and yet I'm drawn instead to the legions of insects endlessly hurling themselves at the overhead lights. Even in paradise, there's futility. At the least, I'm pleased that I noticed this detail, and I'm thinking that these are precisely the ornaments that worthwhile writers hang on their narrative trees. While getting lost in my thoughts, I've closed the distance on the mother and daughter in front of me. When I get close enough to hear their conversation, I find that they're talking about all the insects endlessly hurling themselves at the overhead lights.
- A family dinner draws to a close, and my brother asks his two-year-old daughter if she'd like more milk. She replies, "No! No!!!!" -- the second "No!!!" lasting in excess of two seconds -- and shakes her whole body violently from side to side, as if someone had just asked her if she'd like to have a hornet-infested loveseat shoved up her butt sideways. After she's settled down a little, my brother waits until she looks at him before calmly saying, "You can just say 'No, thank you' if you don't want any milk." As you might imagine, my brother and I spend the rest of the week answering each other's simple, innocuous questions with "No! No!!!" and violently tossing our heads from side to side.
- Normally, I'd go the entire week at the beach without checking my email, but since I'm hunting for a job, I thought it would be in my best interests to check it at least a couple times in case anything important developed. (Years from now, I'll be able to laugh, too.) Of course, there are plenty of establishments that offer "free" WiFi, in the sense that it's free if you buy something else from them. It's a Tuesday afternoon, and I hunker down at a coffee shop with plenty of lousy ambiance. I try to connect to the network, only to discover that it's encrypted. There's a cute, but not intimidating blonde who has apparently successfully connected to the network at an adjacent table, and I figure that this is a fine opportunity to talk to her without appearing creepy and invasive. Or, at least not as creepy and invasive as normal. But, I stall. And, I hesitate. Dear God, man, just ask her what the password is. But, instead I start trying to guess the password based on the network name. I crack it on the fourth try -- a new personal best -- and as I glance at the blonde, I can't help but conclude that I'm intrepid in all the most useless ways.
- I'm pale. So very pale in fact that my family likes to joke about my "albinism." (Okay, I joke about it more than anybody else, but it is the 800 pound gorilla in the room.) These past few years, my virtual translucency has served as an inspiration for a new game: can we locate a beach-goer who's actually paler than I am? Miraculously, this year, we finally saw a chick whose sickly pallor rivals my own. I was tempted to approach her and ask if she'd like to have invisible children with me, but that didn't seem appropriate.
- The afternoon skies are mildly threatening, but it's not enough to dissuade me from wandering down a brick-lined side street with a surprisingly varied collection of high end boutiques and beach-themed shops that primarily hawk what I would call crap. You might suspect this would be an uncomfortable arrangement, but it works. The power players from DC snack on crepes at the French cafe a few paces from a family of sunburnt Packers fans who are laughing at a "Tell your bOObs to stop staring at my eyes" t-shirt. But, we're 200 yards from the ocean on a Tuesday afternoon, and no one seems to mind the blurring of class lines. As I walk past a seashell shop, a beautiful Irish Setter, probably not a day over 18 months, pokes her head out. She doesn't take interest in the other patrons, but steps gently forward as I approach. A quick sniff of the hand and she's convinced that I'm not such a bad guy. A few ear scratches and I'm off again, before the owner either traps me in a boring conversation or tells me to stop molesting his dog.
- It's late Thursday afternoon, and I'm still on the beach. My brother's heading back to the condo, and since there's only one key between the two of us, he's going to have to return with a second key for me after hauling his family's stuff. Even though I'll have to head back in less than an hour, my brother is both sufficiently aware and sufficiently courteous to ask the question, "How many beers do you want?" Sans cooler, two seems like a reasonable answer. After all, I'm enjoying the day, the beer, and the hot chick about ten yards in front of me. She's wearing a brown bikini with an embroidered butterfly on her butt, and I'm surprised that I'm noticing details like this, because mostly I'm violating the 0.34 second rule. I watch her for a spell (behind reflective sunglasses, of course), during which my brother delivers the two beers and one key, and after a while, I half convince myself that she's preening, posing, and trying to attract my attention. Unfortunately, this fantasy crumbles swiftly when I notice that she's also attracted the attention of some dude who's much tanner and better-looking than I am. Actually, he resembles one of those tough guy wannabe Ken dolls on hotchickswithdouchebags.com. I remind myself that I'm taller than he is, but since no one's trying to fetch a serving dish from the top kitchen cabinet, that doesn't seem especially relevant right now. Finally, Occam's razor kicks in, and I'm compelled to admit that she's weaving her web of hair tosses and flaunting her lithe frame for his benefit, not mine. These things happen, and the world turns on axis. But, later, she leaves, with nary a glance at me or Super Tan Ken. At long last, the penny drops. Somewhere, there's a dude whose lust and/or love matters to her, and Occam's razor advises us that it is neither Ken nor yours truly. That Occam was one smart dude.
