For many of us the best time of year is just around the corner — the days when the Sunshine Coast turns into Hawaii North, the days when our outer layers peel off and for a few short months we make a beeline for any piece of sandy land.
Unfortunately for many of us, when we peel off our winter toques, a few of the grey cells come off with them.
We’re the people who drive our motorcycles like we’re doing laps at the Indy 500. We put pedal to the metal and defy the poor slob coming around the blind corner to not regurgitate his or her breakfast. We’re the ones who ride three abreast and smile while we do it.
Some of us are the party-hearty folks, the ones who load up the kiddies and the beer and make for the nearest lake. Once there we proceed to knock back in rapid succession as many brews as we can in a couple of short hours. Then we load up the family, leave the leftovers for the bears to find and weave our way back down the peninsula — all the while yelling at the kids to shut up when they point out the obvious: we’re over the yellow line for the nth time.
Or we’re the people with our newly purchased speedboat who haven’t bothered to waste time taking the safe boating course. What’s to learn? We’ve been on the water since we were kids, so what’s the fuss? We’re often the same people who don’t have room to store our personal flotation devices because the booze is taking up all the space. We’re the ones who make lewd gestures at the people swimming close to the shore who get in our way when we want to drive by and impress our new main squeeze.
Some of us are loud fans of jet-skis. We just love showing the power of those little contraptions. Man, can they make a lot of noise when those dopey cabin owners are trying to put their little kids to sleep — or even better, in the morning, when in a vain effort to douse our hangovers, we let loose at dawn and wake up those cranks.
Some of us are people who like to show off our new swimming pools. We host cocktail parties and invite our guests to just jump in the pool to cool off. We watch Johnny playing the clown, demonstrating the latest belly-flop technique and laugh ourselves silly when he dives in shallow water.
Some of us pool owners are the proud parents of kids just learning to swim. Once the party gets going well, we can relax, mind the barbecue and entertain our lucky guests. Kids, shmids, they know what they’re doing. Besides there are lots of adults to keep an eye on them. Once the party is over, we’re the ones who are too tired to bring the toys in. And, oh yeah, we haven’t had time to get that fence up. And we know that neighbour down the street with the curious toddler is just jealous of our new pool when they keep carping about making our yard safer.
If you recognize yourself in any of the above scenarios, do everyone else a big favour — write your obituary now and save us the trouble. Or change your ways and make a lot of people happy.
