ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 20, 1996 TAG: 9605200133
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: monty s. leitch
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
SHE SAID, ``I've got beach fever. Bad.''
He noticed she was wearing her white shorts, her Hawaiian shirt and her sandals, even though frost warnings had been posted for that night. So he said, hoping to make her feel better, hoping to bring her back to reality, ``Sand in the bed.''
She said, ``Aaahhh.''
He said, ``Sunburn. Black flies. Mosquitoes.''
She said, ``Sunrise. Beach chairs. Margaritas.''
He said, ``There are people living in the Midwest who've never even seen the beach. They've gone all the summers of their lives without sand in their shoes.''
She said, ``Poor devils.''
Then she said, ``What's your problem with sand?''
``Jockstraps,'' he said.
She laughed.
To him, of course, this wasn't funny at all. He said, ``I don't see the point of paying a third of my monthly salary to rent a house we otherwise wouldn't be caught dead in, for a week of heat and screaming gulls and that grit that gets on your scalp whenever the wind blows. Not to mention salt on the car and the way everyone you meet smells like coconuts and sweat and day-old beer.''
``Remember that cute little round house we had one year in South Nags Head? The one with the rush floor mats?'' she mused. A smile flickered over her face.
``There were exactly two drinking glasses in that house and no spoons at all,'' he said. ``There was no screen door. And those weren't rush floor mats. That was exposed carpet matting.''
``I loved that house,'' she said. ``The breezes blew right through it.''
``Otherwise, we'd have died of the heat,'' he said.
He said, ``It was washed away in one of the hurricanes. That makes three, and maybe more.''
``Three what?'' she said.
``Three houses that we've rented on the Outer Banks that aren't there anymore. Whoosh,'' he said, waving his hands. ``Gone to the winds and the waves. Buried beneath the sand.''
She sighed. ``So romantic.''
``Romantic? Romantic!'' He jumped up from his chair. ``We could have gone with those houses, if we'd been there at the time! Don't you remember the one storm we did experience? The waves pounding on the living room window? The wind pushing our car around?''
She said, ``That was exciting, wasn't it? That was the night we ate all those oysters and ... ''
``Stop!'' he said. ``Stop! Remember! Remember the wind! Remember the waves! Remember the sand in the bed!''
She giggled. ``Oh, yes,'' she said. ``I remember that now.''
She sighed. ``I've got beach fever. Bad.''
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Medium: 67 linesby CNB