What a Deal!

By Linda O’Connell

The ocean tugs at my midwestern soul with the same intensity as the moon tugs the tide. I daydream all school year about the way I look and feel at the coast each summer. Completely relaxed, I ditch my makeup because the sun bronzes my skin and blends my age spots into a golden tan. The sea breeze and saltwater help reduce the appearance of my wrinkles more effectively than expensive skin creams. My thighs and leg muscles feel taut because I get much-needed exercise. I can walk for miles and miles on the beach, enthralled watching the ocean toss and reclaim its treasures. My senses are alert to every sight, smell, and sound.

I was thrilled to discover a rental advertisement that read: REAL DEAL Reduced Rates Now! Beach condo available. Two weeks for the price of one. I rushed to tell my husband.

When I met the older owner, she handed me the door key and a wrench. That should have been a clue. “Is your husband handy? Could he check and see what’s wrong with the garbage disposal? The last residents said it wouldn’t work. Ours is an older condo, but very well-kept. You will be surprised,” she said. We signed a contract, and she gave us a duplicate copy that included a photo of the exterior of a 1950s pink stucco, two-story complex.

Late in the evening, we pulled into the parking lot. We soon discovered the truths in advertising weren’t in the bold print, nor in the small print of that contract. I read and reread it, scrutinized the photo of the rental unit, but we couldn’t find the condo number listed anywhere on the document. We knew the name of the complex and that our unit was on the first floor. We took our chances, knocked first, and inserted the key. No answer and no luck on the east side. We tried the corner unit on the west side. Presto!

We checked out the clean one-bedroom apartment. Everything appeared to be in order. We soon discovered that the entire toilet wobbled, making me seasick. The bathtub drain didn’t work, and the furniture was likely purchased piece by piece at various thrift stores on several different occasions over the decades. The pink and turquoise blue floral chairs clashed with the red and green plaid sofa. The wall decorations were hung in a frenzy. Nautical-themed photos nestled next to cheap, cobalt blue plastic flip-flops with sculpted dolphins breeching out of the soles. A cluster of glued-together seashells in the form of a clam family adorned the nightstand. I buried that clan of clams in a bottom dresser drawer. No way was I going to awaken to those googly-eyed creatures staring at me. The coffee table centerpiece was a gold glitter-dusted, solid concrete conch shell, too heavy to lift to my ear, much less hear the ocean’s “roar” in. Yes, we were definitely surprised.

 “The first floor has a great view,” the owner had enticed. I could still hear her selling points. “The landscape is beautiful, and you’ll be right in front of the pool.” We certainly were. When we sat on the two-person patio, the only thing we saw was the front end of our Ford blocking the entire view of the mini pool with a fake palm tree jutting out among knee-high weeds. Three breast strokes and we could swim to the other end of the pool.

The owner had looked shifty-eyed when she’d said, “The private beach is a two-minute walk from the condo.” Now I knew why she couldn’t look me in the eye. The two-minute walk took us a full ten as we dragged our floaters, beach chairs, and cooler down a blacktop road. Our condo was sandwiched between two new, high-rise beachfront hotels. The name of our condo was hand-painted on the gate of an old privacy fence. As we maneuvered our way down the narrow, twenty-five-foot-long, weathered tunnel, I peeked through a broken slat separating us from the guests boogying to a live band, in one of the five-star hotels with an Olympic-size pool.

We dragged our gear onto the beach and encountered “No Trespassing” signs posted everywhere, indicating that sections to the left and right of our thirty-foot private beach were the private property of the high-rise hotels. We were very careful where we dumped our junk.

After an hour, we hauled our sweaty selves and sandy belongings back through the tunnel and maneuvered around an anchored trash can positioned in our path. We left that beach unit a week early, stressed and unimpressed.

Back home, I sorely missed the salty ocean breeze and long walks on the beach. Daydreaming didn’t help. I wanted the real thing, so I purchased a box of sea salt and stirred up a paste. In the shower, I scrubbed my face and body. I rinsed my hair in the sea salt paste and cringed as Miss Clairol #6 swished right down the drain, along with most of my exfoliated tan. I gasped when I looked in the mirror. I was back to nearly pasty white again.

Discouraged, I decided to take a walk. I tried to imagine myself on the beach, but suburbia just didn’t cut it. Our newly tarred and graveled subdivision roads were nothing like the feel of smooth sand underfoot. The honking horns and screaming neighborhood kids didn’t compare to the crashing waves and screeching gulls. I had worked myself into a frenzy. So, I decided to hustle home and recreate my own paradise. I spritzed Ocean Breeze-fragranced air freshener throughout the house. I sat on the sofa and turned the fan on trade winds high right in front of me to tousle my hair. I massaged my arms and legs with coconut moisturizer, and I reached for a beach novel.

Ahhh… the next best thing to the real deal.