Shrek at the Beach

A pretty close match sure, but
his eyelashes are actually longer than mine.

Beach vacations always prove to be a confusing time for me. What could be so confusing about the beach? Well, appearance is my main concern. I'm the kind of gal who upon waking in the morning jumps in the shower, puts on make-up, fixes her hair and THEN begins her day. Well, there are those mornings when I walk a mile or so first but that hasn't happened in a good long time so I'd feel as though I weren't being entirely truthful if I added that into my morning routine... But I digress.

Anyway... The trouble is that while I'm at the beach I'm never entirely sure how to start my day. Why would I want to hop into the shower if there's someone in the house who might invite me to join them in a beach walk. I certainly wouldn't want to shower before a sticky, sandy, often times sweaty, wind-blown walk along the shore. So while I'm at the beach I wake and put on the clothes from the night before. Then someone is apt to say, "Would you like to run to the beach shop with me?" I consider showering first but then another family member will inform me we're planning dinner out for the evening. That's when I reconsider the shower before the beach shop and just merrily head out with yesterdays make-up mostly melted off my face, in my frumpy, sweaty clothes from the day before. I mean after all I AM on vacation... Who am I trying to impress?

Let me tell you what the problem is... I've been wearing make-up for so many years now that without it, I feel like a beast. And though some would say the ocean air was good for the complexion... It seems to have quite the opposite effect on me. Sand and sea tends to leave me with the appearance of a 14 yr. old whose mother hasn't explained the effects of hormones nor the merits of Clearasil.

Often times I stop and consider wandering the aisles of the 'Beach Bonanza Shore Store' and somewhere between the 'Life is Good' t-shirts and the $5 boogie boards, I picture an encounter with a lovely, nicely dressed woman with perfect hair and make-up and then I'll feel like Shrek and want to crawl through dark alleys to make my way back home. So rather than throw caution to the wind I instead decide to run and take a shower first and throw on some make-up. However, once I return from the shops I'm invited down to the beach where the make-up I applied earlier slides down my face in rivulets of sweat and my hair becomes a greasy mat of stickiness. So I come back to the house, take another shower and am then informed we're ordering pizza in for dinner. Did I mention that I find showers an annoying waste of time?... A valuable necessity but still a waste of time. So more than one a day leaves me completely annoyed, but at least a tad better looking than Shrek.