Wednesday, January 7, 2015

The big bad beach, Part 1

Can you imagine starting an explanation of a beach trip with negativity?

Well, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Jeff, Biscuit and I took Jeff's parents to the beach on New Year's Eve and came home Saturday. We really did have a good time, but there was some absolute weirdness and straight-out badness that happened while we were gone.

So I'll share the bad stuff here. And in another post, I'll share the fun stuff.

As usual, we didn't leave on time. We left an hour later than I had planned. But after we finally got going, our trip out to the coast was pretty uneventful.

We checked in and got settled in our room. Went back out for a nice dinner. Then came home and got a good night's sleep. I have to say, of all the hotels we stay in, this particular one has the most comfortable mattresses. And Jeff and I had a king-size bed.

Thursday morning, Biscuit and I woke up early and had breakfast. Then we threw on sweatsuits, grabbed our bag of sand toys and headed out to the beach.

Biscuit and I built sandcastles and made up stories to go along with them, and just had an all-around good time. (Pictures and details in a future post.)

Jeff finished breakfast with his parents and came out to play. He and Biscuit would stand right at the edge of the water and wait for the waves to come in. Then they would both run away, laughing before the water touched their feet.

Most people who passed by would smile and speak to us. And some would even laugh when they heard Biscuit giggling. But not one guy.

One guy was walking behind them, too closely, I might add, when Biscuit turned around to run. The guy was walking his dog, but even when Biscuit squealed, the dog never reacted. The man however let out a big huff, rolled his eyes and shook his head. It was like he couldn't believe that someone would let a kid out to play!

I was sitting farther up the beach in the sand (taking pictures, of course). The man looked up at me right after his snotty reaction, and I just smiled the biggest, fakest smile I could muster. He looked away quickly and kept walking.

Lots of people were walking their dogs on the beach, and Biscuit, although he's quite skittish around them, loves dogs. We're very strict about him asking the owners before he touches an animal of any kind. And he did a good job of asking first, petting the animals with two fingers down their back (the science center folks taught him that), then thanking the owners.

Then what do you know, the snotty man came walking back up the beach, and Biscuit saw his dog. Biscuit stepped out in the man's path and said, "Excuse me. Excuse me."

The man stepped around Biscuit and ignored him completely.

Jeff was looking out at the water and didn't see what was going on. I was getting ready to get up to get Biscuit, but before I could, Biscuit said, "I just wanted to pet your dog."

The man stopped, looked at the dog and said, "Sit!"

Biscuit petted the dog, said thank you and ran off. The snotty man never said a word to him.

The thing is, it would've been perfectly fine had the man said, "Not today" or something akin to that as he kept walking. But to ignore the kid outright was just rude.

We decided to take a nap before dinner. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law decided to sit on the balcony to look at the ocean. Four early-20s women came walking down the beach and stopped to look at mine and Biscuit's sandcastles.

And then ... THEN ... one of those fine upstanding ladies decided it would be fun to jump up and down on our castles until they were ruined.

My mother-in-law saw the whole thing, but I don't think she wanted to tell Biscuit.

I, however, thought it was a good lesson. He should know that some people are just jerky. So I told him.

His response ... "Mom, she's a adult. She should KNOW better!"

"I agree 100 percent," I told him.

To be continued ...

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