What I'm Learning About Sand

Although I lived very close to the shores of Lake Michigan (like Oprah) I managed to stay off the sand for the last twenty-five years. When I came out here to California, it didn't take me long to realize many of the things there are to know about sand.

1. When you're at the beach and get up to go, don't pick up the towel you were sitting on and shake the sand off it if you've been sitting right in front of a big guy with a bull dog. You'll apologize and he'll accept, but the lower lip attached to the big ugly teeth on the dog will twitch and you'll want to try to find your keys in the sand a little more quickly than you are.

2. Bringing a shallow bowl to put the dogs thermos bottled water in is just stupid. You'll dump out the sandy water and then try to wipe out the rest of the sand with the towel you brought along which is now full of...sand. Better to get your dog a beer can hat with the tube that goes right down the side of the head to the mouth.

3. Wearing running shoes and white sox as you walk down to the beach leaves you with shoes and sox full of sand that you haul around like a toddler with a full diaper. When you get home, you forget you have sand in your shoes so you take them off on the carpet which you then have to vaccuum. You still have sand on your feet so you have to sit on the edge of the tub and rinse them off. The sand doesn't go down the drain so you have to wash out the tub. Wear flip-flops.

4. It will never come out of your car completely.

5. If you think sitting on a towel is going to keep sand out of your underpants, you're wrong.