Wednesday, July 6, 2011

This was our first and only full day without guests so it was relaxing and, for the most part, uneventful.

We headed out to the beach sometime mid-morning and found the spot where we had set up camp with Daniel’s crew.

Why Do They Send Me This Crap?

The day on the beach was pretty uneventful except for when Tammy littered the beach (and the ocean). We had set our chairs up in a stream that was ran parallel to the water along the sand and emptied back into the gulf a few yards to our right.

I liked it better than where Tammy wanted to sit the day before, in a pool of standing water, because at least this water was moving. I could see a cigarette butt in the standing pool which combined with the thought of the pool being a toilet of peeing kids, grossed me out. My thought with the running stream was at least the any bodily fluids would move through the area instead of clustering around my feet. Yes, I watch too many survival shows on TV.

Tammy was in her chair reading a magazine and when she turned the page one of those subscription inserts dropped out.

Tammy: Hey! Get that!!
Me: What?
Tammy: Oh geesh, never mind.

I turned to see the piece of paper zip by me and continue on into the ocean. I told Tammy that somewhere out there a fish is going to find that and get all excited thinking it can get InStyle delivered.

It was bad enough that she’d contributed to dirtying the gulf – from what I could determine, she just witnessed Erin’s dumping (pun intended) – but she wasn’t done.

After we had moved our chairs under the shade of the umbrella another insert fell out. I saw it hit the sand but it wasn’t there for more than 1.3 seconds before it was blown away by the wind, this time away from the water.

I started to go after it but I saw the sign saying to stay off the dunes and I didn’t want to get in trouble so I sat back down. I figured Tammy had caused enough problems for one day.

Not Even the Taters from France

Hot 'n Juicy at the Gulf Shores Steamer

We decided to go to dinner at The Steamer because they have no fried food, which is VERY RARE in the South. Not many places down there have the balls to roll out a menu with a big FRIED crossed out on it, but it appears they’ve been able to get away with it.

I didn’t think to check at the time, but I wondered if they had french fries. Nope. Instead of french fries they serve potato chips. I know what you’re thinking, most potato chips are fried and you are correct.

I’m ruling that they are allowed to making the NOTHING FRIED claim since the chips weren’t created someplace else.

I Don’t Wanna Know

As we were about to start eating Tammy said she wished she had asked the waitress for some melted butter. I reached over where the condiments were, grabbed a bottle and handed it to her.

Tammy: What’s that?
Me: Butter.
Tammy: No it isn’t.
Me: Yes it is. It’s clarified butter.
Tammy: I don’t think so.
Me: Ok. Let me ask you this… When you’ve gotten butter for your crab legs before has it ever turned back into a solid? Or does it always stay a liquid?
Tammy: A liquid.
Me: Mmm-hmmm. That’s the same thing that’s in that (pointing at the container).
Tammy: It’s just gross looking.
Me: Maybe so, but it’s still the same thing you’ve always eaten.
Tammy: I don’t wanna talk about it.

She squirted some into a container and with that, the butter discussion was over.

Full Scale Theory Testing

We had decided to do a little shopping after dinner so we walked to one of the souvenir stores. I had been in there less than 2 minutes when a girl crossed in front of me, causing me to stop in my tracks.

No, it wasn’t because she was attractive, nude or partially nude. To be honest, I can’t even remember what she looked like.

But if you asked me what she SMELLED like because she had just Crop Dusted me.

Crop Dusted/Dusting defined

What made it worse was that my mouth was open and it was so bad I felt like I needed to brush my teeth. As I stood there in shock at what had just happened, it dawned on me that she may have been testing out the same Humidity Theory I had experimented with back at Lulu’s (see Did You Have to Let It Linger in Day 2 Travel Log).

I closed my mouth, smiled, gave a little nod of approval and had to go tell Tammy.

Sharks and Swords

As we were moving through one of the stores, I walked by a little boy, maybe 4 years old, who had his shirt unbuttoned so the shark “tattoo” on his chest could be seen.

An older man started talking to him and said something about his tattoo. He squatted down to get a better look and apparently came to close for the Shark Boy’s comfort because all I heard was the little boy yell “Don’t touch it!!”

Oh God, I hope Shark Boy was talking about the tattoo and not something else. Oh man, what if he didn’t know that guy, it seemed like he did but you can’t tell these days… Thanks for making me think stuff like that Tammy and Nancy Grace.

In one part of the store there was a glass container showcasing an assortment of knives, swords and other weaponry. I had told Tammy that we needed to get  Jake some throwing stars but she wasn’t too keen on the idea.

As we were starting to walk away, two guys walked by the container. I think their names were Bubba and Jethro. TI heard the bigger of the two, I think he was Bubba, exclaim, “Aww man… That’s BAD ASS!!”

I’m not sure if they bought anything because I figured it was time for us to get away from them before they got their hands on something.

I Need the Paper

Tammy and I are the stereotypical shoppers for our genders. I’ll breeze through a store in under 5 minutes and be done, unless there are people to make fun of, while Tammy could spend an hour and only have moved three racks from the door.

I was looking for a new swimsuit and while scanning a few racks, I look up to see Jason wearing a huge woman’s sun hat.

Jason: Hey Tammy
Me: You dork.

This led into Jason coming up to me every few seconds wearing every kind of hat from a baby bonnet to fedoras to berets and so on. It caught several customers attention because I could hear them laughing. I abruptly stopped looking.

I had seen all of the cheap junk that I wanted to see and was starting to get bored. I could tell Tammy had more shopping to do so I headed to a different part of the store.

I saw him walk off and wasn’t far behind him. I had stopped to look at a few things but eventually ended up a few feet from where Jason was “shopping.”

All of the sudden I noticed that it sounded like every wind chime in the store (and it was thousands) seemed to be “chiming” all at the same time. Sounds like “tink, tink, ding, ding, tinky-tinky, ding”. I thought “Man, that’s annoying” as I was looking for the kid who was doing it.

Then, I started hearing Jason’s voice.

Jason: Hey Tammy, Tammy!! Ya hear that!!

 I just shook my head because I saw Jason coming toward me from the aisle with all the hanging wind chimes. He wasn’t hitting all of them with his hands. Instead he intentionally was walking under all of the wind chimes so he could hit them with his head.

Me: Of course I heard that, the whole damn store heard that.

He walked up to me all proud and with a big smile on his face.

Me: Give me the paper.

She knew I’d been carrying paper with me to take notes on when something funny happened. She didn’t look like she thought it was funny though.

As I was jotting down my wind chime notes, we started walking toward the exit. That’s when I knew my shopping time was over.

Jason walked by a big display of smooth rocks that were all different colors, buried his hand in them past his wrist, looked up at me and smiled.

I added another note.

That’s when I told her that we needed to go cause I was about to get in trouble.