Can I Be Frank?: Beach Blanket Bizarro

This past week I spent 3 glorious (Name the movie? “I see Blue and he looks GLORIOUS!”) days on 2 of New England’s best beaches.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  The water was amazingly warm.  For my money, there is no better way to spend a day of the summer.

As the Zack Brown Band sings,

“I got my toes in the water, a$$ in the sand,

Not a worry in the world, cold beer in hand. 

Life is good today, life is good today,”.

However, as I happily sat back and soaked in all the splendors of my surroundings it occurred to me that a day at the beach is a complete and total break from reality in every aspect; which is why we all maybe love it so much?

For starters…

Dress code

How is it that we are all so instantly comfortable with our bodies (or lack there of) when we hit the beach?  If Doreen from accounting strolled into the staff meeting with just her undergarments on I am fairly certain it would raise a red flag.  If your neighbor, Joe, showed up at the holiday mixer with no shirt on I am betting he would promptly be escorted out the door and a psychiatric evaluation would be pending.  Yet, throw us in the middle of the Atlantic desert with miles of blue sea around us and we all turn into David Hasslehoffs and Bo Dereks.  And, in about 90% of the cases, it is never a pretty site. 

To quote the late, great Rodney Dangerfield, “With the shape I’m in, you could donate my body to science fiction!”  Amen, Rodney.  Amen.

Nevertheless, whether you are ‘Winona Waif’, the 22-year-old underwear model or ‘Slim Jim’, the 400-pound pasty white gorilla-man, the clothes are coming off; like it or not.

(By the way, I will not even give the topic of Speedos the dignity of discussion)

Personal Space

The concept of an individual’s personal space is often washed away as soon as we step that first flip flop onto the ocean oasis.  You do not always notice, but your fellow fun-in-the-sunners are often way too close for comfort.  I don’t care how crowded a beach becomes; if you can smell the Coppertone on the stranger next to you…they are just too close. 

People walk right in between your conversations on their way to wade in the water. 

Cut off your Frisbee game as they desperately seek cell coverage.  Sure, you might get the gratuitous “Sorry” when your space is invaded, but it does not change the fact that we lose our Ps and Qs when we dry dock ourselves to the dunes.

And my favorite…

When you get the rare and random request to help with sunscreen!  Unless this is your significant other or that Army buddy that saved you in the war, this request is way out of beach boundaries and the ultimate in personal space invasion: 

“It’s Ted right?  Yeah, Ted, I’d love to lather some Banana Boat across your pox-covered back.  After all, you are my sister’s college roommate’s fiancé I met 30 minutes ago.  Let me just throw up in this bucket and I’ll be right with you.”

Yuck.

Smoke ‘Em If you Got ‘Em

Unlike EVERY other civilized setting in today’s world, smoking is more than an accepted practice when you are surfside.  Smokers, who are just behind serial killers on the food chain to some, have been banned from lighting up in nearly every possible arena of life.  But not at the beach…oh no.  To paraphrase from baseball legend Ernie Banks, “It’s a beautiful day for a pack of cigarettes, let’s smoke 2!” (Or something like that)

In my observation there are two primary demographics of sand smokers:

1. The 78 year old leather-skinned-bikini-donning-retired-Sun-Goddess ripping Lucky Strikes up and down the shore.   Picture Magda from ‘Something About Mary’.
2.  The other sunshine smoker is the rotund 50-something man sparking a cigar the size of his leg.  He is usually marching down the coast with a brand new baseball hat, a pair of Wayfarer shades and a Hawaiian shirt.  Picture Tony Soprano’s flamboyant twin brother, Todd.

Like I said in the beginning, there is no better summer escape than to your favorite beach, but see if you notice some of these happenings during your next visit.  Unless, of course, you actually ARE Doreen, Joe, Winona, Slim Jim, Ted, Magda, or Todd – then you are probably just scratching your head.

If you are enjoying C.I.B.F, please become a fan of my Facebook page by clicking here, http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Can-I-Be-Frank/155320167873044