A Disaster Waiting to Happen
I don't know about you, but I'm very health conscious. That is to say, I'm not healthy and I am conscious of that gnawing fact. I'm that way with the environment too, I'm messing it up but I am aware that I am. That was until my attempts last weekend.
Because of recent events that took place on the water here and around Vancouver in the last moth or so, I decided to take action and see what I could do to help clean up the Vancouver shoreline.
The events I refer to were a large fuel spill from a freighter in Burrard Inlet polluting miles and miles of pristine beaches. And then the other fuel spill here in Richmond from a sunken fishing boat.
At the time of the accidents the weather was cool and rainy and I didn't go down to help because it was cool and rainy. But now the weather has warmed, and people have returned to the beaches. The perfect time to clean up an oil spill.
Now don't get me wrong the first responders did one heck of a good job. It's a dirty filthy job that had to be done quick, and not in the most of an ideal of conditions. But now the sun is warm and I can go down to the beaches that may have been overlooked as being perhaps too far away from the original spills. Like,...perhaps,...Wreck Beach I mentioned to the wife in passing. To which she rolled her eyes and called me a little little man.
So now with spousal support (that's about as close as it gets) I devised a plan to attack the beach.
Dawn dish soap was the cleaning detergent I chose to clean the oil drenched water fowl I might encounter. They had used it in the gulf years back for their oil spill, and, it was on the counter.
To absorb the sticky heavy diesel fuel that might wash up on the shimmering beaches I chose a brand of paper towel that is advertised by men in full Sponge Towel attire. What better way to say I'm here and I suck up messy spills than dressed head to toe in roll after roll of Sponge paper towel. And there were boxes of it in the garage.
And so it was I found myself at the bottom of a very long steep path at pre- noon on a Saturday morn. Surveying my job, dish soap in hand, I was suddenly aware how bulky my paper towel cocoon had become as a naked man and lady, about my age, walk past me with some amusement. But it was I who should be amused. For men over the age of 40 should always wear a shirt to the beach, as it confuses the children. Then realizing, not only did he not have a shirt, he and the wife had come down to the beach to air their differences which defeated a modest shirt.
Advertisement after advertisement for the male anatomy walked past me making me question my choice of beach to protect. I quickly, as a roll of paper towels could, rolled toward the shoreline to a less populated point of land on the beach. Rounding the point I encountered three other guys dressed exactly like me all sitting on a log, and all four of us having the same game plan. Rescuing young oil soaked maidens returning from the water, shivering, covered in oil, which would hinder their natural ability to tan. Thankful, non-English speaking Norwegian maidens that would......? Well that's about as far as we thought ahead. And to be honest it was our wives assessment of what they thought we thought would happen. A wife can always see through the old caring for the greater good of the environment go to the nude beach trick.
So there we sat, the four of us looking for oil soaked sea birds of the Norwegian variety.
But there were none. Not Norwegian nor English or French Greek, African, Oriental, Swiss, German or American oil fouled fowl, or chicks. No double breasted kind of anything with which to jump into action to aid.
We four just sat there trying to keep our feet dry from the lapping tide and avoid our sweat soaked suits from becoming any heavier. My veiled attempt to do something for the environment was a failure.
And so it was for fear of proving our wife's right, in that we were just little little men just out for an ogle fest, that we all decided to phone some TV stations and enlighten them to our cause. Then they could come down and film our gallant efforts in ridding a nude beach from an oil spill. And show us as environmental heroes.
What oil spill? It's old news! All the oil is cleaned up already was their reply to which we countered, it's a nude beach, and that we would carry their heavy cameras and sound equipment back up the path if they came down.
Okay. Said two stations, but they wanted us to buy them refreshments as well. A small price to pay to prove our wife's wrong we all figured.
Larry, myself and another guy named Bob met the TV station guys at shores edge. Big Barry it seems was suffering from heat exhaustion and stayed by the log, but promised to try and squirt any birds with soap so the TV cameras could film us heroes in action.
We showed the cameras how we would rip parts of our suits off and place them on the water if we saw oil. Then we substituted other Bob for an oil soaked babe,..I mean bird, and covered his head in Dawn dish soap. He chirped like a bird and pretended to be in distress till we got soap in his eyes, and then he started to swear and they had to stop filming. It was at about this point the two stations started to load us up with their heavy equipment to top the hill when Larry noticed a commotion down the beach. It was a beached Beluga!
The TV station guys chased us down the beach still carrying their heavy equipment to film the event. As we got closer other Bob, Larry and myself could see what looked like three heavy naked old hippy ladies rolling big Barry down to the waters edge. Barry, suffering from heat stroke because of his paper towel attire was singing Fred Penners Baby Beluga song. And these three ladies, suffering from some high other than life we're thinking baby Belugas just knew the song and automatically would sing it as they returned it to it's watery home.
Well what we saw and what they filmed were we're two different things. Myself, Larry and other Bob weren't even in the story. Good thing too because we had to completely unroll ourselves to make three costumes for the three well meaning hippy ladies. The TV people did stories on them rescuing Barry from heat stroke while we sat behind them crossed legged naked on a log in the background like some weirdos. Which, is what my wife saw on the 6 o'clock news. And then again at 11pm, it was seen by everyone my wife could phone between 6 and 10:59. She now had a lifetime of ammo.
Other Bob, Larry and myself hadn't really thought ahead and found ourselves now naked with no clothes trying to get home. It did though save us from carrying the heavy TV equipment up the hill as they had no desire to follow three naked guys up a narrow trail.
Armed with only the remains of three bottles of green Dawn, seaweed and our superior intellect we turned our pasty white selves into the three green men that everyone recognized from the hockey games.
Our new found hero status found us at a huge party for the Chicago - Anaheim hockey playoff game in Surrey. We became known as Larry and his brother Bob and his other brother Bob! Had a blast!
And then I got another one when I got home. The hour at which I rolled in was equal to the number of days the wife wouldn't talk to me. Four days! Four days, and I was still self-bubbling in the shower. Four days it took her to look at me and say "You're a little little man." Four days to devise a better plan for the next inevitable oil spill.
1. Bring clothes.
2. ...
Bob Niles.
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