In honor of our three weeks of freezing Alaska temperatures, a short memoir of my last trip to the beach. Enjoy!
I was thinking of the time we took our daughter’s dog Beans to the beach with us. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, and this beach was teeming with people and dogs, and all the dogs acted as if they’d known each other and been best friends their whole lives. Beans found a group of similar-sized dogs to play with, and the five of them ran up and down the beach, into the surf, splashing and playing. People were splashing and playing, too, adults and kids laughing and soaking up the sun and salty water. It was wonderful. Us dog owners didn’t make friends as quick as the dogs did, but eventually started talking to each other. We were all kind of amazed that all the pooches were getting along so well, and we were just in the process of starting to talk to each other, laughing about the dogs and their weirdness, and how great they were all being, how well-behaved and social… when Beans suddenly stopped playing, turned and ran about ten feet away, hunkering down right about even with the tide line. The waves had moved out, and Beans squatted there, tail straight up in the air like a flagpole and back arched. I was mortified. Then he stood up to reveal he’d made an enormous poo, right there for God and everyone to see. Everyone stopped talking. Everyone stopped playing. Everyone turned to see our dog had squeezed out what had to be a gargantuan three days’ worth of really solid feces. My mouth went dry. I stumbled forward a few steps toward it, not sure what to do. All I had with me was a stick in my right hand, a useless piece of driftwood I’d found earlier, and so I croaked softly, “What do I do?” I could feel everyone’s eyes turning on me, accusatory and disgusted. A small wave rolled in, sea water creeping toward the fresh pile of shame my dog had left behind. I took a few more steps, whispering, “I don’t know what to do,” as Beans finished doing his business, shook off, and ran back to his friends. “What do I do?” I squeaked again in that strange, cartoonish voice. The next wave crept toward us. People were turning away, extracting their kids from their dangerous play at the edge of what was now the craptide, shaking their heads at me and Beans in unveiled disgust. The other dogs were called to get away from Beans and his enormous, ill-mannered poo pile, because no normal dog would do that, not on the beach, clearly afraid their dogs might smell it and decide to defile the beach similarly. I could see one owner mouthing the words, “doggie bag,” as they leashed one of Bean’s friends and dragged it further down the beach, leaving me alone with only my shame for company as I helplessly watched the frothy sea water roll in, first swirling around the mountainous pile and then overtaking it, picking up the upperomost pieces of fresh dog doo and pulling it with greedy ocean-fingers, disseminating it among the waves. I watched one particularly large and hearty log roll out and away, staying miraculously intact until the surf caught hold of it, and I couldn’t look away as that surf chewed it, wood chipper-style, into little brown bits. Pretty much everyone had moved a healthy distance away, and now Beans was looking around, clearly wondering where his new friends had all gone so suddenly and having no idea in his doggie brain why he was alone, or why I was half-heartedly scolding him. “I don’t even have a dog,” I told no one in particular. People were sitting and standing above the line of demarcation, where seaweed and bits of trash marked the danger zone, which was how far the dog shit might travel on the next few waves, grounded from the water for a few angry minutes and casting accusatory looks my way every few seconds, just to be sure I was aware of my low-class beach-dog transgression. The tide pulled out again, and with it went the rest of the stubborn pile. It left a long skid mark in the grayish sand. I couldn’t help it; I giggled. I did. Then the waves were returning once again, and I made myself turn away before I got too engrossed in finding out just how long it would take for the sea water to completely wash the sand clean. When it did, it would take away the ca-ca, but my shame would remain there at Pacific City for eternity. As I swiveled, I was pretty sure I caught sight of a small turd bobbing back toward us like a cork, pushed along by the relentless rhythm of the ocean. Sea water isn’t always salty.
DEE SCOTT ERICKSON, author 