The Birds

As reported in not-so-riveting detail last week, Susie and I were invited by a friend of ours to visit her at her in-laws' beach house for a couple of days. So Sunday we set off for the Jersey shore with a car packed full with boogie boards and knitting and audio books and our Sportbrella, and really, is there any better way to spend one's time in the summer?

Of course not. That was a rhetorical question.

It worked! It really worked!

We spent 2 lovely days in Beach Haven, an eminently walkable beach town with decent bagels and a plethora of places to buy ice cream, and one of those days was excellent beach weather, which we took full advantage of. We spent 6 hours on Monday in the sun (well, under the Sportbrella) and sand and water and even convinced my friend to grab a boogie board and join the fun. And at not one point during that day were we attacked by seagulls.

Tuesday, we attempted the beach again, because the sun came out briefly. (It was too windy to put up our Sportbrella, though, and how many times do you think I can use the word "Sportbrella" in this post? That company should be paying me.) We spent 3 hours waiting for the sun to come back out from behind the clouds before finally giving up. But not before I took out a bag of Fritos (JUST LIKE THE DAY BEFORE) and started eating.

Next thing I knew, I was literally eye-to-eye with a very angry seagull. People, I never want to be that close to a wild creature again. Naturally, I startled and spilled some Fritos on the boogie board in front of me. Immediately there were several seagulls, dive bombing all around my shoulders and head as I frantically tossed those fallen corn chips into the sand away from me, so my legs would not be torn to bits by rapacious seabirds in search of a salty snack.

Hey, I get it. We ALL like Fritos. But they didn't even ask.

At the end there were at least a dozen seagulls swooping around me, calling shrilly to all their friends to come and get it, while I sat there, trapped in my beach chair, wondering if angry seagulls eat people. Eventually, they all left but one, who stood there in front of me for a while, maintaining eye contact, as if he somehow knew I still had half a bag of delicious salty goodness hidden under my swim dress on the chair next to me.

So we called it a day.

You can get a lot of steps in the ocean, apparently.