“I’ll be right back.”
And with that, my daughter got up from her zero gravity beach chair and made her way over the sandy beach to the facilities. I was lying back in my chair, taking in the sound of the waves and the distant seagulls calling out on this spectacular – albeit windy – beach day.
CRASH!
My eyes flew open to take in the sight of Teresa’s chair flipping forward, caught in a wind gust. As it flipped forward it crumpled in on itself, dumping the contents of its cupholder in the process. I leapt out of my chair and grabbed the top of hers, opening it back up. As I did, I grabbed the cupholder, which inadvertently dumped approximately 12 pounds of sand right into Teresa’s beach bag.
Oh no.
I looked inside the bag in horror, noting that the majority of the sand went right into the open potato chips. In an attempt to fix this before Teresa returned, I tried to pour the sand out of the chip bag without spilling any chips. Spoiler alert: I failed. A handful of chips scattered across the ground in front of where we were setup. I didn’t think about that too much as I set about trying – in vain – to get the rest of the sand out of her bag. While this was happening, her chair kept trying to flip again, so finally I sat down in my chair and held onto her chair to keep it in place.
That’s when I saw them.
Seagulls.
And not just a couple.
As though equipped with sonar for spilled food, every seagull on the Eastern seaboard suddenly appeared in front of me, eyeing the chips scattered on the ground. I realized at that very moment my critical error, and also accepted that there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. One seagull – a rather large one who looked like he’d seen some things – stood in front of the rest. (We’ll call him Big Jimbo.) He fixed me with his unblinking eyes as he approached. For a moment, neither of us moved, but then he slowly bent down to snatch one chip.
That’s when the rest of the seagulls decided they wanted in on the action. As they moved forward, Big Jimbo whirled on them with a fury I wasn’t expecting. He wouldn’t allow a single other seagull near his treasure, our sand-filled bag of All Dressed chips. I blinked, suddenly very aware that I was holding the rest of Big Jimbo’s chips.
How was I going to tell my daughter that in the 5 minutes since she left I had gone from peacefully sunbathing to desperately clinging to a zero gravity chair while also being an unwilling witness to a seagull Royal Rumble happening 5 inches in front of my feet?
Big Jimbo got every single chip.
I like to think that we reached an understanding.
