“I know,” a younger woman said. “Just give us another minute.”
“People are trying to get through.”
“I understand.”
Something about the way she said it made me slow down.
I had marched over intending to complain too.
Five seconds later, I wished I hadn’t.
My name is Denise. I’m 54.
My husband, Paul, and I go to the same beach whenever the weather is decent.
It’s not beautiful in some postcard way.
No white sand. No palm trees.
Just a long stretch of coast, a café that charges too much for coffee, and enough wind to make you question every hairstyle you’ve ever chosen.
I love it.
That Saturday was packed.
Families everywhere. Kids digging trenches. Teenagers throwing a football too close to strangers. People hauling coolers the size of refrigerators across the sand.
By 11, we’d found a decent spot near one of the easier paths down to the water.
That mattered because the beach isn’t especially accessible.
Most of the entrances involve steep wooden steps.
The path near us is one of the few flatter routes, though “flat” is generous.
It still ends in deep, soft sand.
Paul was reading the sports section on his phone.
I had a book.
For about an hour, life was exactly what I’d wanted.
Quiet enough. Warm enough.
Nobody asking me for anything.
Then the family arrived.
At first, I noticed them because there were so many.
Eleven. Maybe 12.
Three cars seemed to belong to them.
Adults kept walking back and forth between the parking lot and the sand.
Two children were carrying towels.
A teenage boy had a backpack, two beach bags, and what looked like a folded blanket balanced on his head.
A woman in her 40s kept shouting, “Has anyone got the blue bag?”
Someone yelled back, “Which blue bag?”
“The medical one!”
That should probably have told me something.
It didn’t.
I assumed they were simply disorganized.
They occupied most of the path.
Not maliciously. Just completely.
A couple pushing a stroller had to wait while someone moved a cooler.
Then one of the men jogged back toward the parking lot.
Another waved at someone already standing waist-deep in the water.
A third person kept checking his phone.
It looked chaotic.
The woman on the towel beside ours muttered:
“Some people think the whole place belongs to them.”
I smiled because I was thinking roughly the same thing.
Then the chair appeared.
Two men carried it.
A real chair. Heavy wooden arms. Wide seat.
Nothing like the folding beach chairs everyone else had.
A third man walked behind them, steadying it.
Paul lowered his phone. “Well, that’s new.”
I laughed. “What are they doing?”
The men carried the chair straight toward the sea.
Not near the sea.
Into it.
The man already standing in the shallows waved them slightly to the left.
“Here. Ground’s firmer here.”
They lowered the chair until all four legs were planted beneath the water.
One man crouched and pushed on it.
Another held the back.
I stared over the top of my book. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Paul grinned. “Maybe it’s a new spa treatment.”
The woman beside us laughed.
Then another person said, “People have completely lost their minds.”
I laughed too. Not cruelly.
At least, that is what I told myself later.
Just amused. Confused. A little irritated.
The whole family was still blocking the easiest path to the water.
Then a grandmother a few towels away stood up.
She had two little boys with her.
“Excuse me!”
Nobody heard.
She walked closer. “Excuse me!”
One of the women turned. “Sorry?”
“Can you move some of this stuff? People need to get through.”
“Yes. Sorry. We’re almost done.”
“You’ve been saying that for ten minutes.”
The younger woman nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.”
The older woman pointed at the chair now sitting in the sea.
“And what exactly is that supposed to be?”
Nobody answered.
Not rudely. They simply kept working.
One man carried what looked like a folded wheelchair cushion down toward the water.
Another woman came carefully along the path holding a pair of shoes and a towel.
Someone else shouted, “She’s ready!”
The grandmother threw both hands up. “Unbelievable.”
More people were watching now.
And once strangers start watching together, they become a kind of temporary committee.
Everyone has an opinion.
“They could’ve picked a quieter beach.”
“Why put a wooden chair in salt water?”
“They’re going to hurt somebody.”
“Some people have no consideration.”
I agreed with at least two of those statements.
Then Paul said, “Why don’t you go see what’s happening?”
I looked at him. “Why me?”
“Because you’re the one who’s been glaring at them for 20 minutes.”
“I am not glaring.”
“You’ve read the same page four times.”
That was true.
He smiled. “Go have a look. If they’re actually causing a problem, I’ll come over.”
I closed my book. “I’m not starting a fight.”
“Good.”
