The beautiful emerald water was calm, washing up onto the white sandy shore. The salty sea breeze mixed with sunscreen was the aroma that filled my nose. I sat in my beach chair observing this beautiful scenery while the sun beat down on my half burnt skin. Nothing could be better! It was the last night on the beach, a great way to end spring break ’11 and a great trip it had been indeed.
I had just finished selecting the perfect song on my iPod when I see a family approaching our spot. We were sitting pretty close to the water so I figured they would just walk on by to the vacant spot not too far from ours. I closed my eyes preparing to enter total relaxation mode when I heard some commotion. My eyes fluttered open to find the family, consisting of mom, dad, and three young children, setting up camp directly in front of us. It would be one thing if they just brought their towels and decided to lie down but this family had the entire outdoor aisle from Target with them. Each child, like both parents, carried a large heavy-duty beach chair equipped with pockets, zippers and other various compartments. However, the parents carried many beach bags filled with many beach toys. Oh, and who could ever forget the tent! Slightly irritated I tried to ignore my obstructed view of the ocean and focused on my iPod. But just when things couldn’t get any worse the dad brings out a stereo system and starts bumping to his own jams, cranking up the volume as loud as it could go. As if their kids weren’t already screaming loud enough!
I was infuriated since you would think they would notice us sitting directly behind them. As I sat there trying to take deep breaths I immediately thought of English class and how uncivil this whole scene was. It was such a great example of incivility that I actually started to laugh and proceeded to take a picture. Granted, we were a group of college students on spring break so I cant say we didn’t cause some late night disruptions of our own however, during the day and around families we were very well behaved. This family’s absolute unawareness of the presence of any one else was almost impressive. It was so impressive that I almost wanted to give them my copy of Forni.
