Reaching Out

Vacation

Seaside Wilderness Beach, Ventura, California

After exhausting my supply of jokes about WC's Creamsicle-colored Speedo, accidentally shooting an eighteen-minute iPhone video of the inside of his tote bag, collecting an interesting array of animal teeth, and burning the tips of my ears to a crisp, it was time to pack up and go.

On the burnt turf by the restrooms, a couple had set out a blanket.  Why, I wondered, didn't they bring the blanket down to the beach?

They were speaking in angry tones, so I looked over at them.  One was an emaciated blond girl about eighteen wearing cut-offs and a tank top.  The other was a muscle-bound, thirty-ish man with a blond ponytail, wearing a mango bikini.  

He had a five-o'clock shadow and skin like fine Spanish leather.  The top of the bikini, tied in a dainty bow, held aloft his set of double D's.   A penis like linguica for four was stuffed into the teensy bottoms.

The girl shouted, "You're not my father!" 

That was clarifying.

WC and I mutually decided staring was counter-indicated, and continued on toward the showers.  Our ears, however, were perked.

"I am out of here!" the man shouted.  "See you later, everyone!  Goodbye!"

Everyone?

With this, he jumped into a ratty two-door and sped out of the lot.  The girl calmly dialed someone on a cell phone.  The wind carried away most of the conversation, and I was distracted by the fact that WC was naked under the outdoor shower.  Was he jealous of the linguica and acting out?  

I caught a few of the girl's words. "Yeah, he really over-reacted."

To what?  I was eager to know, but it seemed forward to ask.

I hustled WC into a pair of dry shorts, and we got in the car.  I asked him, "Do you think that was a Craigslist date gone wrong?" 

WC shrugged.  "I think most people are disasters in progress, and others are disasters waiting to happen."

That's why I call him my little ray of sunshine.

Trader Joe's Women's Restroom, Ventura, California

I walked in and noticed a young woman brushing her teeth with an electric toothbrush, a large glob of Crest on her face.  She was standing in the corner of the room farthest from the sink.  Both stalls were full.  

A Trader Joe employee walked in and rushed into one of the occupied stalls.  

The occupant called, "Don't open the door!  It doesn't lock."

The employee withdrew, saying, "Yes, it does."

I heard the occupant flush the toilet, then try to lock the door again from the inside.  

"No!  It doesn't lock!" she said.

"Yes it does," the employee said flatly.  "You have to tilt it."

The woman, who was about seventy, came out, glared at the employee, and washed her hands.

I figured the employee's bladder might have been about to explode, accounting for her behavior, so I waved her on ahead of me.  She locked the stall door.

"See," she said triumphantly to the occupant, who was drying her hands, "it locks."

The woman left silently.  The girl was still brushing her teeth in the corner, and still had not wiped the glob of Crest off her cheek.

The other occupant emerged, and I went into the stall.  I heard the employee flush and come out, then begin washing her hands.  

"Please don't brush your teeth in here," she said to the girl.  

"Why not?" 

"Because it makes people uncomfortable to come in here and see you brushing your teeth.  We even had one person shaving her legs in here."

"Well, I'm not shaving my legs.  And I don't know what YOUR dental hygiene is like, but I like to brush my teeth after I eat.  Are you the MANAGER or something?"

"Yes," said the employee, "I'm one of the managers."

"Well, I am going to write to your corporate HEADQUARTERS and ask them about it," said the girl.

"Okay," said the manager, in an icy tone that led me to believe she was going to her car to get a shotgun.

I flushed and went to the sink to wash.  The girl and I were alone.  The blob of Crest was still there.

She turned off the brush and looked thoughtfully at me.  "Does it make you uncomfortable if people brush their teeth in the bathroom?"

"I really don't have an opinion on it one way or the other," I said, hoping to escape before the shooting began.

"I mean, they're just TEETH, right?" she said,

I smiled in what I hoped was a soothing way.  "I don't know," I said, while swiftly exiting the bathroom.  

I couldn't see the manager, but looked around nervously for her while WC paid for our Thai chicken wraps, anticipating the sound of gunfire.   

WC covered me, and we made it to the car.

Point Lobos, California

With great inner effort, I overcame my lifelong anti-social tendencies for a few moments, offering my binoculars to a woman and man who had been hiking behind WC and me for about half an hour.

"Here," I said, smiling in what I hoped was a friendly and not scary way, "there are four cormorants nesting over on that rock.  Would you like to see them?"

She turned pale.  She ignored the binoculars, shared a meaningful look with the man, and stared at me as though I had just struck her.

Her voice trembled slightly as she said, "We've had some really bad experiences with cormorants."   The man nodded gravely.  

"We had jobs feeding marine mammals at a park on the East Coast," she said.  "Cormorants would dive down and stab our hands with their beaks, trying to get the herring."

They both held the backs of their hands under my nose.  There were dozens of small white scars.

The man said, "Their beaks are like razors."

She took the binoculars, looked through them briefly in the direction of the birds, shuddering slightly.  Then she handed them back to me.  She looked into my eyes with deep sadness, then walked on, so upset that she didn't even notice when her bare leg brushed against poison oak.

WC was trying to suppress laughter because he didn't want me to hit him.  I said, "This is what happens when I try to reach out."