Jeez Louise, several someones were sitting in all our chairs. (See what I mean about that Goldilocks thing?)
Not only were they sitting in our chairs, they were eating a roasted chicken. In fact, they had quite a smorgasbord going on there under our trusty blue pop-up shade.
“Excuse me,” I said, stating the obvious, “but you are sitting in our chairs under our tent.”
Glares. No movement.
“You are going to have to leave,” I said in a louder voice.
Words were exchanged. Not nice words. Threats. More not-so-nice words.
They stomped off, leaving chicken bones in their wake, but stealing one very nice Lands End beach towel.
The next year we didn’t have to worry about anyone sitting in our chairs or under our shade, because someone stole the entire tent.
So this year, thinking that perhaps the tent thing was cursed, we purchased some cute bright lime-green umbrellas to take out to the beach. When we left for lunch, we closed the umbrella. When we returned, it was gone. We spied it about three families down to the left. Some women had heisted our umbrella.
We walked up to the umbrella hijackers, and my husband, stating the obvious, said, “You have our umbrella.”
“Yeah,” one of the women said, “we needed the shade.” No apology. Nothing. We reclaimed our umbrella.
Later we noticed that the hijackers were staying two floors below us. That evening one of the women was flying a kite by the swimming pool. She tied it to the fence and went inside to eat dinner. I wondered how they would have felt if I had taken the kite for a little spin on the beach. After all, they left it unattended.
I could then just say, “Yeah, I needed a kite” when they came to reclaim it.
But you see, I guess I’m just too old-school, with old rules. You know the one. It goes something like this: “Thou shalt not steal.”
Yeah, that one.
Article comments
1 - Joanne Huspek
Wow. You must have been friendlier in Texas than in our area of the country. I would never leave anything unattended unless I wanted someone to take the item. In Michigan, someone would have pulled out a handgun, probably the umbrella heister.