beach hazards

I get up early and take the 7am Bolt Bus to Boston.  There, I’m picked up by a driver, who warns me that his seat belt is not properly working, and to ignore the loud beeping that sporadically interrupts my back seat game of Words With Friends.

By 2pm, my mom and I are loading up the golf cart for a trip down to the beach.  To avoid the you-should-wear-a-hat-and-sit-under-an-umbrella lecture, I put on an old beach hat.  “That hat looks awful.  It’s all faded; you should throw it out,” my mom advises.  She’s right.  I take off my hat and stuff it in the back of the golf cart.  “Let’s go,” I say.  “Well you can’t go to the beach without a hat.  Do you know what June’s dermatologist told her?  You can get melanoma on your head without a hat.”  I decide to take the chance.

It’s low tide, sunny, hot and cloudless.  After an hour or so of relaxing, I say, “I’m hot.  C’mon, let’s bring our chairs down to the water and sit there.  It’ll be much cooler.”   “No; you can’t do that,” my mom warns.  “Betty Buckley did that last week and her feet got all bitten up by bugs.”  It’s not worth the argument.  I spend the rest of the afternoon hot and hatless.