By Vicki Brown
My husband and I went to the beach for the afternoon to enjoy the cool breeze, beautiful waves, and crazy people.
Now, most people aren’t crazy who go to the beach, just a few. But every now and then you will find some real characters who evidently wrote the book on how to be one fry short of a Happy Meal. That happened to us one Saturday, and I couldn’t wait to tell my readers about it.
That day was cooler, and we took our chairs to place conveniently on the sand about 30 feet from the sea. Next to us on our left was a middle-aged couple, and on our right was an older couple with a beach umbrella. About 10 feet in front of the beach umbrella couple sat three ladies with cocktails, floppy hats, and low beach chairs.
Directly in front of us was a large empty space straight down to the water. I knew it was too good to last.
A half hour later, a young couple carrying a small toddler strolled in front of us, opened a basket, pulled out a blanket, and spread it across the sand. The mother, who was probably in her late twenties, was wearing a bucket hat and tan wide legged capris and a tunic. She began taking everything off and stood there in a small flesh-colored bikini. Her husband had on shorts, a Panama hat, and a t-shirt. Reaching in her basket, the mom pulled out a conglomeration of plastic containers, and sitting her child down, she fed her family snow peas, carrots, broccoli, strawberries, and blueberries. They were obviously millennial hippies.
I sat there scarfing down my Cheetos and diet Dr. Pepper watching the entire procedure, feeling rather sorry for the blonde toddler who would probably rather have my Cheetos.
When they finished their “meal”, the mom stood up, wrapped a towel around her husband’s waist, and held on while he took off his shorts and underwear and put on swim trunks. Just when this was getting rather interesting, she packed up the containers, took off the child’s clothing…including the diaper…and set HER in the sand to play. (Yes, it was now painfully obvious to everyone around that this was a little girl).
I kept waiting for a tiny bathing suit to appear, but one never did. Instead, the mother, sporting a few tattoos and a nose ring, kneeled down on the blanket and began a series of yoga poses.
I don’t know how familiar you may be with yoga, but suffice it to say, some of them are rather provocative and downright obscene when wearing a bikini.
Absolutely shocked, I sat up and looked around me. Sure enough, my husband was gawking, too. The middle-age couple next to us were transfixed on the ridiculous sight, and the senior couple on our other side were in stitches. The three ladies, with a little alcohol in their systems, were leaning forward whispering and twittering with laughter.
The little girl suddenly stood up and ran naked to the water while the father chased her down. At that moment, the mom stood on her hands and feet with her behind in the air. She then took one leg and touched the back of her head. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I lost all sense of good behavior and fell over laughing because a man walking with his little boy looked up from his shell search, saw the indecent yoga pose, and came to an abrupt halt…gaping with an open mouth. Without warning, his son pointed and yelled out, “DAD, THAT KID IS NAKED!”
That is all that the population in the vicinity, who had been watching the entire fiasco, needed to hear to lose total control. Everyone was laughing.
The man grabbed his son, yanked down his pointing finger, and dragged him back down the beach and away from the spectacle. The mom thankfully ended her exercises and beamed at her husband and daughter as they returned to the blanket, totally oblivious to the humor around her.
I couldn’t take it anymore. It was obvious that this girl wasn’t thinking straight in her desire to be an “earth mother”, but I felt that I just HAD to say something about the naked three-year-old girl.
I walked down to the water, got my feet wet, and then slowly strolled back to my chair, smiling at the mother as I walked by. When she smiled back, I felt that this was my opening.
“Um, without a diaper or swimsuit, I bet that sand will really hurt her private areas,” I said casually, hoping she would get the message.
Instead, she laughed. “I know! It will be just like dermabrasion or a sea salt scrub!” she said happily.
I gave in and went back to my chair. The people around me looked up, sincerely hoping that I had made some headway, but I shook my head and shrugged.
You can’t always fix crazy.
