Dear Ai! Quick! Quick! Quick! Lickety-split! I need about a 500-word paragraph on how I spent my last summer vacation! I totally spaced this stupid assignment! If I don’t get it in by today the teacher, Mrs. Millgillicutty, not that her name matters much, won’t accept any more late papers! Something about we’re almost to next summer vacation. Anyway, I remember when we first got this assignment, and I was like, I didn’t do anything on my last summer vacation but lay on the beach at El Porto listening to a transistor radio! What’s to write about that! And I watched the surfers come and go and the waves blow all froth like the bottoms of cutoff jeans and the jets from LAX taking off over the bay looking way too fat to fly like the Dodo and the oil freighters off El Segundo and a few sailboats in the offing a word that was on our last vocabulary quiz by the way. Anyway, one day, one of the hottest, ever, you couldn’t even walk barefoot down to the water the sand was so blistering hot and I dropped my towel and jumped on it every few steps to keep my feet from turning toast until I got to the wet sand near the water and all was cool. I don’t like to take a bunch of stuff to the beach. Just my towel and my bag. In my bag I stuff an extra suit, a pair of shorts and an extra tshirt, my transistor radio, a bottle of water, an apple or an orange, suntan lotion, a comb, a Nancy Drew book (I had a summer goal to read 12 Nacy Drew books, and I actually ended up reading 17), a pair of binoculars, a foldup sand chair, a small umbrella, a pair of flipflops, and my purse. Oh, yeah, but I was going to talk about that one day, the hottest on record. I usually get to the beach around noon, after I’ve finished my chores, make breakfast, take out the trash, straighten up, empty the ashtrays. I live up on Gull in El Porto so all I have to do is walk out of the apartment and down to the beach and usually I’m the first down but soon there are the others my friends all strangling down like they had a bad night or something but the reality is the worst they might have done is stay up late watching movies on the all night movie channel. Of course there are parents, or parent, and they can be unsettling, what with their bickering and worrying and criticizing and stopping off at bars on the way home until you have to get your own dinner but not everyone’s home is like that in fact each home is quiet different even if the parents seem the same. Anyway, back to how I spent my summer vacation and the one hottest day I remember it’s like branded on my behind. Jocko the beach’s best surfer ever stops where I’m sitting and asks can he leave his board with me while he goes in for a dip the blackball flag is up and all boards have to be out of the water. I’m stupified. He’s never even noticed me before. But I’m totally chill and like if you want whatever and that kind of stupid self conscious response and off he goes into the water where he stays like three hours! I’m like HELLO! how long am I supposed to watch your stupid surfboard and it was that day I decided how I would spend the rest of my summer vacation and it wasn’t watching some stupid minihunk’s surfboard while he dolls his afternoon away in the waves. I’m not some sort of artificial doll, you know. I’m real. With something real to talk about. About 500 words is all I need! Thanks!
Sincerely, Beach Bum Betty
Dear Betty, Here you go:
I didn’t do anything on my last summer vacation but lay on the beach at El Porto listening to a transistor radio! What’s to write about that! And I watched the surfers come and go and the waves blow all froth like the bottoms of cutoff jeans and the jets from LAX taking off over the bay looking way too fat to fly like the Dodo and the oil freighters off El Segundo and a few sailboats in the offing a word that was on our last vocabulary quiz by the way. Anyway, one day, one of the hottest, you couldn’t even walk barefoot down to the water the sand was so blistering hot and I dropped my towel and jumped on it every few steps to keep my feet from toasting until I got to the wet sand near the water and all was cool. I don’t like to take a bunch of stuff to the beach. Just my towel and my bag. In my bag I stuff an extra suit, a pair of shorts and an extra tshirt, my transistor radio, a bottle of water, an apple or an orange, suntan lotion, a comb, my cell phone, a Nancy Drew book (I had a summer goal to read 12 Nacy Drew books, and I actually ended up reading 17), a pair of binoculars, a foldup sand chair, a small umbrella, a pair of flipflops, and my purse. Oh, yeah, but I was going to talk about that one day, the hottest on record. I usually get to the beach around noon, after I’ve finished my chores. I live up on 44th in El Porto so all I have to do is walk out of the apartment and down to the beach and usually I’m the first down but soon there’s the others my friends all strangling down like they had a bad night or something but the reality is the worst they might have done is stay up late watching movies on the all night movie channel. Of course there’s parents, and they can be unsettling, what with their bickering and worrying and criticizing and stopping off at bars on the way home until you have to get your own dinner but not everyone’s home is like that in fact each home is quiet different even if the parents are the same. Anyway, back to how I spent my summer vacation and the one hottest day I remember it’s like branded on my behind. Jocko the beach’s best surfer ever stops where I’m sitting and asks can he leave his board with me while he goes in for a dip the blackball flag is up and all boards have to be out of the water. I’m stupified. He’s never even noticed me before. But I’m totally chill and like if you want whatever and that kind of stupid response and off he goes into the water where he stays like three hours! I’m like hello how long am I supposed to watch your stupid surfboard and it was that day I decided how I would spend the rest of my summer vacation and it wasn’t watching some stupid hunk’s surfboard while he dolls his afternoon away in the waves. I’m not some sort of artificial doll, you know. I’m real! With something real to talk about!
Good luck, Ai
The Coming of the Toads 