Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Realization #1 from this year's beach trip

I got another reminder while we were on vacation this past week that I am getting older.

One morning on the beach there were two teenage girls near us who had rented an ocean kayak. They struggled a little getting it out past the waves, but once they did they took off paddling towards the pier which was about a mile away. I knew as they left, that due to the way the current was flowing they were going to have a much harder time coming back from the pier than they were having paddling towards it. Sure enough, an hour or so later Emily and I looked down the shore and saw the girls struggling to get back. It got so hard to paddle against the current that they gave up and paddled into shore, and as a result they now had to carry or drag the kayak a couple hundred yards to get back to where they needed to be.
When I saw this, I got up and began heading towards them to offer and help carry the kayak. As I was heading their way I thought to myself, "I hope they don't think I'm flirting with them by offering to help."
That's when I realized I'm not young anymore. When I reached where they were the conversation went something like this:

me: "Can I help y'all?"

teenage girl one: "Oh, yes sir!"

teenage girl two: "Thank you sir, we've got to carry this all the way back to our house, and I didn't think we could make it."

Two "sirs" in 30 seconds. I'm pretty sure they didn't think I was hitting on them. I felt like congratulating the girls on their manners, but then that would have really made me seem old. Sherry was in the bed sick the day this happened, and when I told her about it that afternoon she laughed hard.

Just for the record, I've got one year left in my 30's, so I'm not that old. I'm just not that young either.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're not old daddy. But two sirs is pretty awesome.

Trey Frick said...

One year and one day left in your 30's if I remember correctly. Glad to have yall back but I know how hard it is to leave the beach. If I could move the beach up to Greer, I think I wouldn't mind living there.

Jonathan Everette said...

That's the funniest story I've read in a long time. I feel your pain.

DMaC said...

That's quite humbling. You SHOULD feel old. Haha. Yea, I've had some similar incidents. It could have been worse. You could have needed help from the girls carrying the kayaks.

Anonymous said...

If you are implying that 40 is OLD...THAT'S JUST WRONG!!!
Because I just turned 40 and I keep hearing that 40 is the new 30, what ever that's suppose to mean!!! LOL