seaside – Ana Linden

… You know it must be the height of summer season at the seaside.

There’s always one, I keep reminding myself every summer… that is, if I’m lucky, because there’s a good chance I get to see more than one. Living by the sea certainly comes with lots of perks, but there are several peculiarities one needs to learn to accept as well. If nothing else, you never get to forget that “vacation” is that magical time of year when boundaries get very blurry for most people. It may not always be fun to witness, it might often be maddening, but hey, you learn to live with it!

So there he is, our summertime, vacation loving gentleman, proudly strutting his stuff, pushing a shopping trolley down a supermarket alley. Belly elegantly spilling over his tight, three sizes too small swimsuit, worn flip-flops flipping the delicate grains of sand finally escaping the trap of his hairy ankles, he knows exactly where he needs to be.

“Mommy, mommy, is that man poor?”

The little girl he pushes over in his mad rush to reach the beer isle keeps tugging at her mother’s shirt. Giving the man an angry look, the mother tries to avert her daughter’s eyes and draw her attention away from the testosterone wonder.

“Is he homeless, mommy? Why does he have no clothes? Should we help him?”

Out of the mouths of babes… I smile to the little girl as I walk by pushing my shopping trolley and the mother and I lock eyes, exchanging a knowing look. Damn summer, damn tourists, her exhausted, angry face seems to say.

Two of the security people are rushing, almost running to catch up with the inappropriately clad shopper. I was wondering how he’d managed to get that far. Generally they are stopped at the entrance and politely asked to head back to their vehicles and put on some clothes. That polite – some would say common sense request – is rarely met with a decent, polite response, much less with an apology. Generally, rude comments regarding the fact that it’s summer and it’s a town by the sea are proffered, just like in the case of today’s tourist, who simply refuses to leave without his beer… Who would have thought supermarkets might need to impose a dress code…

How many of these people would behave the same at home, on their way to the pool, I ask myself as I stop to let a lady cross the road. She’s barefoot and all she’s wearing is her bikini and a thick layer of makeup covering her face. Granted, we’re not that far from the beach, and that’s where she seems to be heading… But after seeing another similarly dressed lady who had accessorised her outfit with a pair of flip-flops and a transparent pareo wrapped around her hips walking around in the middle of the town, nowhere near a beach, I can hardly be bothered to notice this one.

I see them every day, coming and going to the beach and I can’t help wondering how they’d react if a throng of almost naked, loud, rude, ill-mannered people invaded their home town all of the sudden. Vacation time is also a time for upside-down, Alice-in-Wonderland type of situations, you soon remember if you have the strange idea of going for a walk and then stop for a drink/meal in the afternoon, in beach adjacent venues. No matter how nice the place may be, there’s a good chance the waiters will have to shoo away some disgruntled guest parading around in their dripping wet swimsuit. You see, now you’re the odd apple, for finding those pesky clothes appropriate. After all, it’s summer, it’s hot and you’re at the seaside! What the hell, live a little!

Now that we’re approaching that moment when we’re going to melancholically look back on yet another summer, I must confess – I don’t, resent them too much… at least not this summer. Once they finally go back home, to their normal lives and normal attire, once we get rid of them after we’re finally done making fun of them, the summer will be over. And I don’t want the summer to be over just yet…