Oriium

Who doesn’t love a trip to the beach? I’ll tell you: me. I’d much rather stay home and tinker around in my shed, or maybe head over the mountain for a spot of fishing on the lake. Call me curmudgeonly, but I just don’t understand what people love so much about the beach. Is it the sand flying into your face and stinging your eyeballs? The baking sun combined with a total lack of shade? The seagulls screaming for chips? Or perhaps the variety of poisonous creatures ready to twine themselves around your exposed feet?

This is why I was relieved to find that I have my annual car service booked in for Friday. Phew! When Tina invited me to join her and the kids that day, I told her I’d have to check my calendar, knowing full well that I had nothing planned. Turns out, I’d forgotten all about this long-standing appointment, which I genuinely can’t reschedule – I’m driving interstate the following week, and I’m not doing that without a brake pad replacement. Besides, I’ve had to wait weeks for this booking thanks to the pre-Christmas rush. 

Basically, I have the perfect excuse to skip out on the beach trip, without looking like the ill-tempered beach-hater that I am. It’s not a good look when you’re dating, I’ll tell you that much. Once people get to know me better, they can usually wrap their heads around my dislike for the beach, but it seems to be a pretty hard sell in the early stages. I guess people find it unromantic or something.

Let’s just hope that Tina doesn’t offer to drive me. That could be a slightly trickier corner to get out of. It would just make the day extra annoying, though – I’d have to drop my car off at the shop first, then somehow get to Tina’s without it, which would mean leaving pretty late. Then we’d have to leave early so I pick the car up, and all this with her kids in tow. What if she insists, though, on the assumption that I love the beach as much as everyone else?

Maybe I need another excuse.