If there’s one thing I hate it’s people. Collectively, we’re pretty stupid. I’ve been saying this for years and have millions of pages of recorded history to back me up. People have an uncanny knack for taking perfectly beautiful things and ruining them. We try to make things better, and instead, make them much worse. (See: New Coke, Star Wars prequels, Kenny Rogers’ face, et al.)
Recently, I discovered another magnificent thing that’s been needlessly destroyed by mankind’s stupidity: beaches. After living in Washington State for years, I finally made my way to its glorious coast. You can imagine my alarm and dismay when I finally reached the seaside and discovered automobiles driving around as if it were a city street. Apparently this ridiculousness is legal on many beaches in the Evergreen State. Families are allowed to simply drive up to the water, park the minivan, open the doors, and vomit their picnics and corresponding accoutrements onto the sand.
The most scenic parking lot in the state!
There’s no shortage of reasons for me to hate this newly discovered human failure. For one, cars are always leaking some fluid or another, which means plenty of chemicals making their way into our already polluted oceans. Also, I always thought beaches were a great place for kids to run around and play. But here in WA I’ll have to teach my son to look both ways before he crosses the dune. And maybe I’m old fashioned, but I prefer the sounds of crashing waves over the buzz of than automobile engines.
But above all else I take umbrage with cars on our shores because it represents the epitome of American laziness.
Lazy Man: Hey honey, it’s a beautiful sunny day. Wanna go to the beach?
Lazy Woman: I’d love to. But all that walking outdoors might burn calories and force fresh air into my dormant lungs.
Lazy Man: No problem! We live in Washington. We can drive up and down the beach and witness its scenic splendor from the front seat of our SUV.
Lazy Woman: Good point. Let’s go!
Or…
Lazy Woman: Let’s take the kids to the beach.
Lazy Man: I’d love to. But we’d have to drag all of our stuff a few hundred yards from the parking lot to the waterfront. Who wants to do that?
Lazy Woman: No problem! We live in Washington. We can just drive right up to the shore and roll ourselves onto the sand. We’ll hardly have to move a muscle.
Lazy Man: Good point. Let’s go!
To make matters worse, some of the folks choosing to motor around the beach don’t even know how to do it properly. In my relatively limited time near the ocean, I saw three cars get stuck. After driving ill-equipped vehicles into the sand, they spun their tires and tried in vain to push themselves free. In each case, the owners eventually found larger, beach-appropriate vehicles to tow them out. I imagine locals with large trucks can make a pretty good living on our coast during the summer months.
FYI – Cars don’t get stuck if you leave them in the parking lot.
To be honest, I’m less upset that stupid people are choosing to drive on the beach (after all they’re stupid, I would expect such behavior from them) and more ticked off that state and local authorities allow this silliness to occur. For ten years I lived in Southern California, a region where cars are quite literally everywhere. You want to know where they aren’t? At the beach. You know why? Because it’s the freakin’ beach!
I understand we have a large, diverse country and that different regions have different laws and different ways of doing things. But our nation’s coastal beaches are breathtakingly beautiful and shouldn’t be driven on or used for our parking convenience. We should cherish them and enjoy their magnificence until they’re inevitably developed into luxury resorts and multimillion dollar homes. Is that really too much to ask?
Mr. Sunshine 