Week of Memories: Day Four

I hate sand between my toes. I hate being soaking wet and then as dry as a reptile, in desperate need of a gallon of lotion. I hate the beach. I hate applying lotion after being in the sand, only to have a gritty mess all over me. I hate getting sunburned. But on one trip to California my husband and mother-in-law talked me into going to Manhattan Beach for a few hours before we headed home. I wasn't thrilled about it, but sported my white bod in a swimsuit and shades, and tried to have a happy attitude. Afterall, we were in California and just minutes from the beach on a warm, sunny day.

As you can see I ended up slightly enjoying myself...
I left the beach thinking, "Well, that wasn't sooo bad. Maybe I can learn to love the beach like my husband does. I am covered in sand, gritty from head to toe, but all I have to do is walk to my car, jump in and drive for a few minutes and I will be back to the hotel to shower." Well, that didn't become reality. We climbed the small hill to where our car WAS parked. Key word= was. It was nowhere to be found. We questioned if we had really parked it there, if someone had stolen it, or if it had been towed. My body started getting itchy, sand was falling out of my shorts, and I began to panic. Not only did we not have a car, but we also didn't have a cell phone, money or any type of identification. We left all of that in the car that was now missing. There was a gas station a little walk away, so we hiked there to see what to do. I was hungry (and gritty), but of course I had no money to buy food or drink. I was worried (and gritty) that we had no idea where our car was. I was lost (and gritty) on what to do about this situation. The gas station worker got ahold of the city, who got ahold of the impound lot, who talked to us and told us we better pick up our car within the next hour because they were closing. Apparently there was a small sign that said we couldn't park there between such and such of hours or else we would get towed (at owner's expense, of course). Okay, so at least our car was safe, but how do you get to a car 15 miles away without money or transportation? We enlisted a Taxi to take the 3 of us there. It was one heck of a ride.....hot (with no A/C....why do Taxi drivers never use A/C?), hectic (we couldn't find the impound lot) and gritty (we were still covered in sand and my skin was shedding by the second). Once we arrived there, just minutes before their closing, we had to leave my mother-in-law in the taxi as collateral since we couldn't pay the driver until we recovered the car and Preston's wallet. Basically, hours and $300 later we got our car back and made it back to the hotel to shower. To sum it all up, I still hate the beach. Can you blame me?

Oh, and to top it all off we were pissed that gas was SO expensive and we had just spent a small fortune on a tow, a taxi and a ticket...If only we had known what the future would bring, we would have spent another small fortune to barrel the stuff up and store it.

I know many of you are thinking I'm nuts for hating the sand, the beach and most things tropical. My husband is grateful because instead of a Hawaiian vacation I beg for a baseball game, complete with people watching and hot dogs.

Life's a beach.