Clean, not Sanitary

From the lighthouse we could see today’s break at the north jetty. The waves broke small, but clean.

We needed two boards and a wetsuit. The surf shop offered a handful of mediocre, mid-size boards for rent. When we asked about the wetsuit, the clerk said, “We don’t rent wetsuits. For sanitary reasons.”

Crestfallen on two accounts: no wetsuit, and the implication that I’m just a grubby surf dad willing to dress his son in someone else’s pee. I had nothing to lose and twisted the dagger one more turn.

“We could still get the boards and swap out suits,” I told my son.

That left the question of whether it would be worse to wear the pee of some anonymous surfer, or wear his old man’s pee. The kid handled it gracefully.

“No dad. Then we wouldn’t be surfing together.”

That restored my sanity.

We did ok, though. We stayed together, the four of us, on rented beach cruisers. We biked up and down the island, passing the sign telling us where—if not why—the chicken crosses the road. We stopped for ice cream and listened to the ocean in the sun.

The surfers down there all rode the break in their wetsuits, apparently not rented. What difference did that make, riding the swill in a pack of surfers keeping warm in their neoprene and polyolefin?

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