Myrtle Beach Daze

So. It was a pretty good vacation.

You cannot possibly fathom the meaningfulness of these words until you know the Beach Curse that afflicts me.

Something gruesome always happens when I go to the beach.

I first became aware of this loathesome curse at the tender age of 8 when my 5 year old sister walked under a windmill at Putt-Putt golf and was almost decapitated. Actually, when I look at the inheritance we'll be receiving one of these days, that could have possibly been quite a break for me. But she recovered, and eventually so did I. Although I did pitch quite a temper tantrum when I learned that I could not finish the course.

At the age of 13 I sustained first degree burns after sunbathing. I have not sunbathed to this day, which possibly accounts for my porcelain skin. So that turned out to be sort of a good deal after all.

Then things really started to heat up. I ignored the curse and actually moved to the beach when I was a young lawyer. I moved down there very much in love with another lawyer and we were going to have a wonderful life together, well, until two years later when he ran off with his secretary.

We lived in an oceanfront apartment which is now resting at the bottom of the ocean along with the Titanic after Hurricane Hugo hit in 1989.

But I gamely persisted in my insane obsession with the beach. I did move away after two more years of fruitless searching for a single straight man who didn't want to wear my underwear. People always told me how awesome it must be to live at the beach and my standard comeback was this:

"Well, if you want to have a beautiful 4 hour relationship/f**k a married golfer from Wisconsin, yeah, it's heaven."

So I finally found Mr. Right and in 1996 we vacationed there. While wandering romantically along the beach contemplating the Meaning Of Life, I ran a fish hook in my big toe.

"Please don't scream so loud as I inject a needle filled with Novacaine into your big toe," the nurse gently told me. "You're disturbing the other patients."

1997 was the best year of all. My father died during our week at the beach. Massive, instantaneous heart attack.

Ok, so that put me off of the beach for 2 years. Then I decided the curse had possibly run out. Just in case we went to a different beach and Roger developed a severe infection in a tooth that necessitated $2000 of root canal work.

I won't even mention the digestive disturbances that result when this pure and holy vegetarian attempts to eat greasy seafood.

So why do I keep going back? Because I farking love the place. I keep thinking that this is just a ridiculous thing, that curses aren't real, that it's just co-in-ki-dink...

I could not resist the siren lure of the waves to end 2005 and off we went. I decided not to answer the phone if I saw either family had called. After all, I reasoned, if someone else dies they'll still be dead after I get my fill of surf and turf.

The phone rang the second day we were there. Meredith snatched it up. My heart sank to my toes when I heard her say "Hi, Grandma!" to my mother in law.

After a long phone conversation, my husband said goodbye and he hoped that Dad would be better soon. I grabbed the counter for support and inquired what had happened.

"Dad went to a basketball game," my husband explained. He slipped, fell, sliced open his head, was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, and has twelve stitches."

I shrugged.

"If our parents don't know enough to lock themselves in a closet by now when I go near the ocean," I explained, "I cannot be held responsible."