I had the extreme pleasure of taking a vacation with my family over Christmas. It’s the first time we’ve ever been away from home for the big day. We spent an entire glorious week in a rented condo directly on the Atlantic on Hilton Head Island, S.C.
Mingled in with our other plans, I had a few minor goals in mind for myself. I wanted to find the following things ON MY OWN:
- Alligator
- Lizard
- Shark Tooth
- Dolphin
Each time someone else spotted one of these things, I pretended to be happy, but inside it was eating me alive. I’m competitive, but only quietly, inside my head. I’m proud to report that I found not one, but two lizards on my own. As for the rest of my list, it was downhill from there. One of the girls saw the alligator (the one and only) and I barely caught a glimpse of the dark spot as we drove by. It could have been a discarded garment bag for as good a look as I got. We saw two dolphins, but everybody saw them – out prancing around, flaunting themselves so no one even got a real chance to prove themselves by being the first to see them.
So exciting!!
Less exciting.
Late in the week, my lizards were old news and my last real chance was the shark tooth. We walked along the beach every day, but it was only as my hope for the dolphin and the alligator dwindled that I pinned my hopes on the shark tooth to be my blaze of glory. I googled what they look like so I would be ready. I found several “maybes” and my kids laughed at me, insisting they were just pieces of shells.
Two ladies overheard our conversation and asked to see. I held out my hand and they said, “Those aren’t shark teeth,” much to my family’s amusement. They proceeded to give me two pity teeth from their own collection, which only made me more determined.
The pity teeth.
My Marine, who had listened to the ladies and looked at their specimens, put his focus on the job and found a very nice one five minutes later. And gentleman that he is, he didn’t even gloat. In my defense, I pay extra for the thin lenses in my glasses. Otherwise, those bad boys would be about four inches thick and corrected vision is never the same as naturally great vision. Seriously, it really isn’t.
The big one even has a set of spikes on it. #ridiculous
My Marine went back to tossing a football around in the surf with the kids and I never took my eyes off the sand. About an hour later, he came back over to check in with me and upon hearing the sad tale that I still hadn’t found one, he set his focus on it once again and about ten minutes later brought back an even nicer one. This time, my friends, he did gloat. He’s only human, you know. Except for his eyesight…that’s superhuman.