Friday, July 28, 2017

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.


7 comments:

  1. Who knew a day at the beach could be so frightening! At least you had one good day. We go in August and I can't wait!

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  2. This make me laugh out loud! I love the beach, but eating there . . . well, if it's not the birds then it's the impossibility of ingesting food without somehow getting tiny grains of sand mixed in. And you can't get that shit out of your mouth. Ever.

    BTW when I clicked on this post in my email I somehow ended up reading 'spring cleaning' first. I didn't notice that I was going back in time. Anyway, I have to say your use of Windex on the ants reminded me of the movie 'Big Fat Greek Wedding.' Ha!

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  3. Glad to see the Sportbrella worked so well. Those darn birds are scavengers and evil.

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  4. YIkes! I once saw a seagull fly off carrying an entire large piece of pizza. That was also at a beach in New Jersey. Your account here leads me to wonder if NJ seagulls are somehow related to the NJ governor.

    Hooray for the Sportbrella! I say that not only because I love that the Sportbrella is a way to keep my cancer-prone skin out of the sun and still enjoy the beach, but also in the hopes that the company making the Sportbrella will also give a little commission to blog commenters every time they use the Sportbrella product name.

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  5. Mrs. G needs to read this! I'm officially scared of the Jersey shore now.

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  6. AnonymousJuly 31, 2017

    That's a LOT of steps.
    And a cool umbrella.
    A flock of seagulls could really help someone sticking to a diet, I think.

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  7. My fitbit died (band came separated). I want to get a new one but then it's kind of nice not seeing how much I didn't exercise haha.

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