Back from another fortnight at the South Carolina shore, and once again it was most enjoyable, with a few hiccups here and there just to make things memorable.
The weather was fine both during our travels and while we there. But our minds certainly were cloudy on the day we left home. Four hours down the road, it dawned on us that we'd left the keys to the condo back at our house. Oh shit! Since we rent directly from the owner, the local realty company down there would be unlikely to just hand us the keys after our half-baked "we forgot" story. And the owner was at that moment vacationing in France! Mon Dieu!
For some strange reason, the lovely Mrs. Gammons had the phone number of our condo (I would never think to have such a thing), and as we rolled down the West Virginia Turnpike in a semi-panic, she called it. The current occupant was in the unit (Miracle #1) and answered the phone (Miracle #2). The missus explained our predicament and asked them to leave the condo unlocked when they left. Happily, they bought her story and agreed to leave it open (Miracle #3). As it happened, they were still packing up when we arrived on Saturday morning, so it all turned out OK. But what a brain cramp -- 19 years of doing this and we forget the keys!
A new wrinkle this year was that son John brought along his girlfriend Emily. Ol' Buster was worried that maybe this wasn't the best idea in the world -- we like Emily a lot, but two weeks together? Would we four be able to enjoy a peaceful coexistence, or would one of us become the turd in the punchbowl? My worries were unwarranted. It was all good.
The interaction between Young Son and Li'l Squeeze is interesting. To an old fart like me, it's more like a lack of interaction. They're side by side, but each is glued to some personal electronic device, seemingly ignoring the other. He's listening to his iPod thru headphones while she sends texts on her cellphone. He plays a game on his phone, she watches TV. Or they're together on the couch but both are on their laptops simultaneously. Sometimes they'll get it down to just a single laptop, and together they'll check out Facebook or other sites. Aww, ain't that sweet? It's the modern equivalent of sharing a soda with two straws.
Our first week group had most of the usual suspects, and we engaged in most of our usual shenanigans: daily happy hours, beach bocce, oysters, Stella paella, the All Star Game, bald paynuts (boiled peanuts), and jeen buckitt (gin bucket). What? You've never had a gin bucket? Well, you'll just have to get your butt down here sometime and try it.
The first week, good old friends Jim and Tish normally rent beach chairs and an umbrella. This transaction is handled via the nearby lifeguard, known always to us as "Vladimir". (Where we go, the beach service employs eastern European kids as guards.)
This year's Vladi asked Jim where he was from. "Ohio," said Jim. With that, Vladi asked if Jim had any "smokey-smokey" to sell, and pantomimed toking a joint. It seems that the prior week, someone from Ohio sold Vladi some weed, and in the logic of a teenage Ukrainian lifeguard drop-shipped into South Carolina, if one Ohioan has pot, they all must! Jim confessed that he was completely out of marijuana (and had been for the past 35 years!).
And yes, that "particular individual" was back again. After last year's flare-ups (see Buster's archives for the 7/25/11 "Beach Thoughts" post) where he finally figured out that perhaps some people disagree with his precious right-wing opinions, P.I. was more circumspect this go-round. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to introduce himself, unbidden, to young Emily as "the deeply conservative Republican retiree who was highly successful in business and made over $250,000 a year." (Isn't that just the perfect way to introduce yourself to someone you've never met? What a douche!) Deconstructing P.I.'s statement: Deeply conservative Republican retiree? You betcha. Highly successful? In the eye of the beholder. Made $250K a year? Bullshit!
P.I. was a bit less politically provocative (hooray!), but still managed to bring up the Fox News version of global warming (there ain't none!) to anyone he could corral. Climate change denial is P.I.'s idea of polite cocktail party chit-chat. Jesus! Early every morning, I head to the beach to set up our chairs -- hey, I rode the bench in JV basketball and I know you gotta box out and establish position -- and one morning I'm sitting there, just me, a cup of coffee, and the Atlantic Ocean. Out of nowhere, and unbidden as always, who plops down beside me? It's the P.I. and it's seven-fucking-fifteen a.m. Oh, goody. My own pathetic version of small talk goes something like, "Wow, it's hot already, isn't it?" Which was all the encouragement he needed. Suddenly I'm being educated as to how global warming is a hoax, and climate change today is just part of a natural up-and-down cycle, and how human beings don't contribute in any way to these changes, and it's all due to flatulent dinosaurs or sun spots or some such nonsense.
The nice thing about a cup of coffee on the beach is that when it's gone, you can always excuse yourself to go get another. So I did, and beat a hasty retreat back to the condo.
The first week drew to a close and our old familiars headed home. For the second week, we knew we'd see Don, the owner of the next-door Unit #1. He's always good company and we were glad to see him again. But as for the rest of the second week occupants, it's like a box of chocolates -- you don't know what you're gonna get.
We drew a real winner in Unit #3, on the other side of us. Saturday evening, as we sat on our little front deck, we observed two SUV's pull in and head for #3's garage. The first one pulled in, but the second one stopped and the portly driver got out and announced that he couldn't get his vehicle in the garage, so maybe he'd just park "over here," meaning in our garage, or in front of it. We quickly and politely hollered down to him that, no, he couldn't park at our unit, that he had to use his own, and that all the units had two-car garages which were identical in size. This information seemed to displease him. He parked in front of the #3 garage all week, never even attempting to get both cars inside.
As they ascended the stairs, it was clear that this group had issues beyond the inability to park a car. The adults were fat, decrepit, and disabled. There were three red-headed teenage kids who were "on the spectrum", to use the current phrase. Although every unit has its own deck space, the decking is continuous and wraps around the entire complex. Our unit shares a staircase with Unit #3. The kid who was clearly the furthest out there on the fringe of the spectrum galloped up the staircase and instead of turning right toward his own unit, he went left and clomped onto our deck as we sat there. He looked at us, a bit puzzled. "Well, hello there!" I said cheerfully. He held up a bandaged finger and said, "I scraped my finger." I told him I was sorry to hear that and I hoped it was feeling better. He said it was. By then, his parents were calling him back to their side and I remarked that I was glad he hadn't scraped his dick!
And so for that second week, for the first time ever, we closed the gate that separates Unit #2 from Unit #3. Our neighbors took full advantage, covering the gate and the landing with their towels, sandals, etc., all of which we had to move each time we used the stairs. Indeed, they kept their deck and railing constantly adorned with gobs of wet shit. Couldn't park or find the dryer, I guess.
Speaking again of parking, on Sunday I was coming up from the beach and Kathy was at that same moment returning with our car from an errand. And now a third vehicle had appeared at #3. Parked behind the one that was already out, this new one conveniently blocked the stairs to Units #6 and #7, as well as the driveway to Units #1 and #2. From behind the wheel, Kathy threw up her arms and gave me the universal "WTF?" signal. I stepped over their mountain of flip-flops and knocked on their door. The new arrival opened it. (We eventually learned that she was ex-military, had bad home-made tattoos, came with a couple idiot children of her own, and could hock a loogie with tremendous velocity, distance and accuracy. Charming!) I explained that she had to move right now and couldn't park where she was because it obviously gummed up the works and blocked everybody else in or out. She told me she'd just arrived and didn't know where else to park. What I really wanted to say was, "If your dumb-ass relatives could figure out how to get two cars in a two-fucking-car garage, we wouldn't be having this conversation!" But instead I politely suggested the public access lot just to the south of our building. This being a metered lot, she naturally chose to park illegally along the street all week. I hope she got a ticket.
Beach Foul: Space Invaders. As I mentioned, I set up our four beach chairs fairly early each morning, in front of our condo and roughly at the high tide line. I get this done before the lifeguard puts out his rental chairs and umbrellas. The first week, this year's Vladi was pretty good about setting up the rental chairs for Jim and Tish and Jerry and Stella right beside ours, as we'd asked him to do. But the second week, he grew careless. Sunday, he set up an unrented umbrella and chairs right smack-dab in front of us. I moved our chairs a bit.
The next morning about 8:00, I looked out and he was doing it again! He had the chairs positioned in front of us but hadn't sunk the umbrella yet. I hustled down to the beach and asked Vladi if he could maybe open his eyes and take notice of our chairs and set up his rentals to the side of us instead of in front of us. He shrugged in a "I-don't-speak-English-and-I-don't-care" manner, pointed to his stuff and said, "Pipples vill zit in dis chairs." I pointed at my chairs and fired back, "Yeah, Vladi, but I have pipples vill zit in my chairs too, and my chairs were here first! Spread your shit out, damn it!" He moved his chairs and did marginally better the rest of the week. Maybe he'd been enjoying too much smokey-smokey.
Personal space violation continues to be the most frequent beach foul, but there are others. One humorous foul is "Fat Man In A Little Chair". Is it inspired by Chris Farley's fat man in a little coat bit in Tommy Boy? I don't know, but we've seen the routine at the beach twice in two years. Last year's big boy literally crushed a low surf chair. This year, we observed another grossly obese man (400-500 lbs.?) attempt to use a somewhat more suitable chair -- a folding aluminum lawn chair with a normal seat height. Less of a drop from the standing position to the seated. This year's Crusher made it through one day, but the next day the aluminum was stressed out and the seat tore free of the frame, dropping to earth. With the Crusher in it. He calmly sat there with his ass in the sand for quite awhile, as though this awkward position was intended, but eventually he conceded, and pitched his broken chair. The lesson? If you weigh 500 pounds, they don't make a beach chair for you. Sit on a blanket.
And not to be picky, but my other favorite beach foul this year was people who have no idea how to play bocce on the beach (or elsewhere, I suppose). Examples were many and numerous. Now Ol' Buster learned his bocce from Jim, married to full Italian Tish, so my schooling was authentic and legit. What I know: real bocce has four red balls and four green, period; they're wooden and heavy; they're fairly large, about like softballs; on the beach, you play parallel to the water and below the tide line on the packed sand where the balls roll nicely; in a two-team, four-person game, two stand on one end, two on the other; teammates stand on opposite ends; after the first two balls are thrown, the team further away, or "out", from the pallino (the small, white target ball) throws until one of their balls is closer, or "in", and then the other team throws. What I saw: a bunch of cheapo bocce sets, often plastic; bocce balls in hideous shades of blue, yellow, pink, purple; people trying to play bocce shotput-style in the deep, soft sand above the high tide line; people digging a hole in the sand and placing the pallino in the hole; eight players all standing at one end throwing one ball apiece; the out-throws-until-in rule routinely ignored, etc. etc. Oh, the horror. The horror!
But such things are minor annoyances, mere trifles soon forgotten. It was a great vacation, as always, and we're already talking about doing it again next year -- if we can remember to bring the keys!
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