Off to a Rousing Start
I drove to the beach last night to drop brochures at the campground store and the fancy hotels. Actually, there are no truly fancy hotels in my town. The fanciest hotel calls itself the "Beach Resort" and it has a conference room overlooking the ocean and a pool and sauna, but the salt air and thirty years of its existence pitted away at the wood rails and blue awnings, and no new coats of paint can give the illusion of anything other than a lower middle class week-off-of-work crash and swim spot. These vacationers eat at the outdoor fried fish cafe and buy postcards and ice cream in tacky stores dotting the street. The money people stay two towns down the coast in the high rise hotels with famous chef sushi bars and lithe straight-haired dark beauty check-in girls. They don't visit my town.
I stopped at the Beach Resort first, kids and brochures and stuffed kilt in tow, and walked into the lobby where a rack of bright sightseeing brochures captivated 7 and 9 while I spoke to the young woman tending the lobby.
"Excuse me miss? Can I leave an Avon brochure in the lobby sitting area? Would it be alright if I slipped some brochures under the rooms doors? I'm trying to raise money to send my kids to college and myself to Thailand."
I pointed at my two boys, who were playing tug of war with the last Dinosaur Wild Animal Park leaflet. 9 held his arm out, hand flat against 7's pulsating stomach, keeping 7 from gaining ground.
"Well, they have a long way to go, though, ha ha." I glared at 9 who withdrew his hand and let go of the paper and 7 tumbled to the ground in a heap, just missing a head-smashing glance on a whitewashed wicker chair.
"Ya sure I don't care."
The woman ran her words together and didn't life her eyes from the celebrity magazine spread out on the lobby bar. Her elbows rested on each side of the tabloid, fingers twirling through her greasy blonde hair, and I noticed her pocked and ruddy skin. She continued reading and twirling as I left a brochure and a couple of Avon Clearskin samples next to her magazine. I left her there, silent and wistful, reading about people she would never meet, never be. She didn't thank me.
The next stop sat in the middle of a sandy, cigarette butt-studded campground, only a mile from the resort. It rests between the two lane coast highway and the cliffs overlooking the ocean, a narrow slit, covered by sage scrub and eucalyptus. The state owns the land and charges a small fee for parking your RV or tent, and summer months find the grounds filled to no vacancy, filled with young burnt and peeling children carting boogie boards and old grandmas and grandpas in bermuda shorts and t-shirts with funny sayings like "Old Men Rock" and "Beach Bummin'."
On the way to the campground I gave 7 and 9 a lecture.
"I do NOT want to see any more behavior like I saw in that hotel! Do you understand me?"
I used my Mothership voice, the low-down-no-good-rumble voice I inherited from my own mother, the voice I heard when I was 7 and 9 and grabbed papers from my sisters and made farting jokes. They nodded in silence and I saw 7 stiffle a giggle and poke 9 in the ribs from the rear view mirror.
The campground store was closed when we arrived. I left a brochure labeled with "Ask me about Skin So Soft Bug Guard!" in bright orange print hanging on the door and began to walk back to the van.
"Hey Mom! Look!"
9 pointed behind me, to the "Wood Fires Not Permitted" sign hanging off the store's wood siding. A fat racoon scuttled around the corner, to the door of the store, and grabbed my brochure. She yanked hard and the plastic of the bag gave way, sending the brochure and Skin So Soft samples sliding across the dirt drive.
"Hey! Hey! Raccoon! Leave it alone! Drop it!"
I ran toward the mangy beast, raising my arms high over my head like those zombies in old horror flicks and stomped my feet. She looked at me as if I were a nuisance of a human like a kid acting off in a hotel lobby, and she continued sauntering away from the store, brochure in mouth, bloated belly with fully extended nipples swaying from side to side. I dropped my arms, picked up the samples, and walked back to the car, slammed the door shut and started the engine.
7 and 9 giggled the entire ride home.
10:42:05 AM 
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