"We shall go," they said, "to the ocean!"
That is what they said.
What I said, of course, did not matter. The women had spoken.
I was, however, curious.
"Why shall we go to the ocean?" I asked.
"You ninny!" they replied. "We shall go to the ocean to worship the sun!"
And so it came to pass that my savings account was bled of dollars amounting to thousands, and in return came an electronic certificate: "You will have a house, a full-fledged house, for an entire week."
The house has a deck. It has five bedrooms. It has a central kitchen-living area. It has a shaded carport.
The house is within sight of the ocean, perhaps 200 yards from the beach.
So I was not prepared for the next pronouncement.
"We shall take a canopy to the beach beside the ocean!" said the women.
Again, what I said was deemed irrelevant. But I remained curious.
"Why," I asked, "must I spend hundreds of dollars for a canopy, in addition to the thousands of dollars that I have spent for a house which already provides shade, within view of the ocean, and does not require me to wrench my back while setting it up?"
Ninniness was again cited.
"You ninny!" they said. "Do you not remember last year when we had an El Cheapo canopy? It was wonderful!"
Wonderful?
The finger-wide aluminum legs quickly bent, then broke. The plasticized 6 foot by 6 foot cloth cover repeatedly flapped loose. The tie-down stakes, built for use in grass-covered sod, pulled out of the sand. We spent most of the entire week wrestling with that monstrosity, and took grim satisfaction in garbage-canning it toward week's end, when it had been twisted hopelessly out of shape.
But, said the women, the canopy provided shade.
They regularly bring sunscreen to the beach in 55-gallon drums, these women do, or at least it seems that way.
Overexposure to intense sunlight can cause cancer, and it can cause wrinkling of skin.
I agree.
In fact, I have a guaranteed solution: Stay away from the beach. The beach is beside the ocean. In the ocean, there be sharks. Our ancestors came across the ocean specifically to get across it, and away from it, in my opinion. They came to the hills and mountains.
"It is good. We shall settle here, and remain here," they said.
Or so I was told.
Hah.
I was told that by males.
Females, I have learned, have a deep-seated instinctual urge to return to the salt water from which, eons ago, we all crawled - except for Adam and Eve, of course, who got a free pass onto Eden's land. But their sons and daughters married others, and those, Darwin said, came from those who came from those who came from salt water.
And so, we must return.
We - meaning males - must spend thousands from our savings accounts in order to procure temporary housing near the ocean, complete with more shade than a battalion of females could occupy.
Why, then, must we also spend hundreds for an "easy up" canopy?
"Do not ask!" I was told. "Instead, do!"
So it was that I and a woman did in fact live up to the canopy's slogan of "up in seconds." We unpackaged it, pulled apart the metal skeleton and, Lo! Up went the canopy frame. Attaching the fabric with Velcro strips was child's play.
Not child's play was the filling of four empty chicken feed sacks with 50-60 pounds of sand, to be hoisted, pulled, and tied to the canopy frame to hold it down against the beachside winds.
Back, meet wrench. Again.
Every day.
Because, of course, at the end of each beachside day, the fabric must be removed and the metal skeleton must be lowered, necessitating a relocating of each of the four bags of sand.
Wrench, meet back. Again.
Happily, much of the time spent at the beach is time spent doing nothing at all, just sitting there, hypnotized by the splash-crash of the waves.
That time can be well spent pondering the existential questions of the universe.
No, not THOSE questions. I already figured out the meaning of life. I already learned the relationship between God and man. I already grasp the quiddities of love, hate and testosterone-estrogen conflicts.
The existential question of the universe during this year's vacation was:
"Why, after spending thousands for a house, must I spend hundreds for a canopy to provide shade from the sun, when, at home, we have large trees hovering above our house for that very same purpose?"
I pondered.
Back came the answer.
"Grasshopper," said the existential voice, "you are male. They are female.
"Do not comprehend. Merely, do."
Ah. Yes.
- ? ?
Denny Bonavita is the editor and publisher of McLean Publishing Co. in west-central Pennsylvania, including the Courier-Express in DuBois. E-mail: denny2319@windstream.net.