A Day At The Beach

On a recent hot summer afternoon I went to the beach and ran into my old high school buddy, Slug. He was sitting in the shade of a scrub pine, slouched in a canvas beach chair, with his feet propped up on a cooler.

"Slug! What's happening, man? I haven't seen you in forever!" I exclaimed.

"Been way too long, dude. Haven't been doin' much, just gettin' by, ya know?"

Slug dipped a tortilla chip into his nacho cheese sauce, and used it to point out across the beach, dripping cheese on his knee in the process.

"Look out there, man. What do you see?"

"Well," I replied, "I see a lot of people who are going to wish they had put on more sunscreen when they go home tonight."

"True, my friend, but look hard, what do you see?"

"Lots of tattoos, for one thing," I noted. "And quite a few chunky girls out there today."

"Bingo!" he exclaimed. "And chunky is an understatement."

So shoot me, I thought, I was trying to be charitable.

Slug got on a roll. "There's not a woman out there who couldn't stand to lose 40 pounds. What is happening to the younger generation?"

Slug finished his last nacho, and reached down into a brown bag under his chair. "Cookie?" he offered, holding out a monster-sized chocolate chip creation.

"No thanks, man, my doctor's all over me about sugar. I'm not as young as I used to be."

"Man, remember when we were kids? What was the favorite thing to do on a hot summer day?" Before I could speak he answered himself. "Hang at the beach and check out the women! Look at this, man, this is pitiful!"

I tried hard to remember being young. I could conjure a faint memory of my lean healthy body jumping into the waves on a hot summer's day. And yes, Slug was right, I did seem to recall the pleasures of watching healthy young women stroll across the sand.

Then I looked around. Every single person on that beach was fat. I made myself notice the men, since I had not paid much attention to them at first, and they all had big bellies hanging over the top of their trunks. As I re-focused on the women, my heart began to sink. Even the young girls, sixteen years old, in the physical prime of their lives, had big jiggling thighs and rolls of blubber bulging out in all directions from anywhere their swimsuits would allow it to escape.

"You're right," I nodded, "I can remember young women with slender shapely figures. They were so beautiful back then." I looked around the beach with new eyes, and realized Slug was onto something. "Those really were the good old days."

After not seeing each other for so many years, Slug and I had bonded anew.

"Sit down, dude." Slug insisted. "Here, grab a brewski and check out this cheese ball."

So we sat, and ate, and drank, and talked about what had happened to the world we used to know. The sun beat down, the waves slapped against the shore, and it was a wonderful day to be alive at the beach.

Later in the day, Slug began to wax philosophically. He opened a can of peanuts and said, "You know, think of what could be accomplished if all the money these people spent on tattoos was invested in gym memberships."

I grabbed a fistful of nuts, washed it down with a cold slug of Coors, and tried not to choke on my laughter. It occurred to me that perhaps we were being too harsh, especially in light of our own physical condition.

"You know, Slug, neither of us will ever make a living as swimsuit models, either."

"For sure, dude," he agreed, "But at least we started out looking good. We're old, man, it took us a lot of years to get into this kind of shape. If these kids look this bad now, what are they gonna look like when they're 50?"