The Five Beach Trip: Part II

At some point in everyone's life, a topless girl teaches you a lesson. For some, this happens early in life -- maybe you walked in on your mom just getting out of the shower and she gave you what for. For others, it comes a little later -- maybe you . . . you know what, I'm not going to elaborate on that. That's personal.

Like their first taste of alcohol, my kids started their Topless Girl Education under my 'watchful' eye. Because that's just the kind of mom I am.

Our hotel was right on the beach – which is pretty much the point of touristy Cancun. There is undoubtedly more “local” color if you get away from Hotel Row, but we didn’t see much of it. Much to the relief of my father, who barely survived the five days we were gone. He was convinced he was going to see our five blonde heads on the news, caught in the middle of a drug bust gone wrong. Because that sounds like us.

Anyway, with the beach right there, we spent basically every moment by the water – either the pool or the ocean. The Spring Breakers were just beginning to arrive as our trip was winding down. Thank goodness. Guess what, my little children, if you want to go to Cancun for Spring Break, without your mother, the answer is no. Don’t ask again.

One afternoon, we were out wading in the ocean, playing with a sea urchin – which is surprisingly entertaining, considering that they look exactly like spiky rocks and are just about as mobile – when I caught sight of Rachel, hand over her mouth, eyes bugging nearly out of her head, frozen mid-stride and mid-sentence. Which, if you know Rachel, is kind of a big deal. Mid-sentence? What horror was lurking behind me? I cautiously looked over my shoulder and saw a very topless, very drunk girl, lollygagging about not more than 15 feet away.

For a minute, I couldn’t understand Rachel’s obvious distress. After all, I haven’t showered, bathed, dressed, undressed, or anything else requiring me to be even partially unclothed, without an audience since 1997. And I don’t mean an adult audience. What was all the fuss – certainly she’d seen those things before. Clearly she was rather disconcerted by seeing someone else’s ‘those things.’

Abby caught sight of Topless Girl at about the same time I did.

“Mom! That! Girl! Has! No! Top!” Abby has yet to master the art of whispering. Candidly, I haven't either, so sitting by us in church is one part super awesome, one part super embarrassing.

Spen didn’t even look up at Abby's pronouncement. Everyone else within 3 square miles did. Good boy, Spen.

With all the additional attention, Topless Girl decided it would be funny to go out in the water, so she stood up, ‘casually’ crossed her arms across her chest and waded out, practically brushing Rachel as she went by. Rachel nearly passed out. The awkwardness rolled off Topless Girl and enveloped all of us. It was clear she didn’t really want to be Topless Girl, she’d much rather have been Normal Girl with Both Parts of A Tiny Bikini On, but her drunkenness apparently compelled her to play this other, remarkably less comfortable role. She was trying too hard to be scandalous . . . and it came off as desperate and fairly pathetic.

I was so proud – the kids picked up on it right away and made rather insightful observations:

“If that girl weren’t so drunk, she’d probably have stayed in her swimsuit.”

“Drinking makes you do things like talk loud about your [pointing to chest]. Lame.”

"Her mother would be very sad right now."

“I don’t think that she looks cute with seaweed right there. Like that helps.”

Zach was getting me a pina colada, of course, so he missed the whole thing. Of course, the girls took great pleasure recounting the play-by-play. He was so scandalized that he had to go lie down. By the pool, as far as possible from the beach.

So the Life Lessons we learned that day were:

1. Drinking makes you do really stupid things where you end up with sand in places that were clearly not designed to accommodate sand.
2. The desire to be shocking just for the sake of being shocking is transparently sad. And all those looks you're getting? Those are pity looks which probably isn't what you were going for with all that nakedness.
3. Seaweed as a swimsuit only works on real mermaids.

All important things for children to learn.

Next up: How We Were Almost the Inadvertent Stars in a Horror Flick