The Men from Atlantis Communiqués

I must admit that I don’t quite understand your predilection for frequenting beaches at spring break. If you think about it, the beach is actually a grim wasteland. What the heck am I talking about now? Well, there are all sorts of creatures in the oceans. They swim, float, scuttle, crawl or cling to the bottom. Eventually they die. When they do, the ocean does its housecleaning by throwing what remains of their corpses up on the beach. Obviously, this makes these places reek, what with the half-rotted fish and seaweed strewn about on them. Then there is the fact that those beautiful white sand beaches aren’t what they seem to be. What looks like white sand at a distance is, on closer inspection, not sand at all. What it is is ground up coral, seashells and fish parts; in other words, skeletons. So not only do you get to enjoy the stank of rotting corpses, but you get to walk, lay or otherwise frolic on a surface that is, in fact, a grim necropolis of the oceans. Also, the sun in these areas is mercilessly hot and you swiftly get heat stroke or at least become so hot that you take leave of your senses and decide that the ocean would be a good place to go to cool off a bit. This is not a good plan. Poseidon doesn’t want you in the ocean and he has box jellyfish, sharks and other bouncers patrolling these areas as a warning to stay the hell out. Even the ocean itself tries to give you the hint – every time you try to go in a wave tries to throw you back out. But waves are the “nice” bouncers in Lord Poseidon’s nightclub. The riptide is the mean bouncer who drags you into the club and beats the living bejeebers out of you! And the other inhabitants of the ocean are also well aware of the fact that “the Boss” doesn’t want you around, and they are more than willing to sting, claw, bite, shred tear you apart or just swallow you whole to keep you out of there. If surface dwellers had been meant to swim, God would have given them gills and fins!

So there you are, hanging out on a gruesome layer of pulverized skeletons, enjoying the wafting odor of rotting flesh and plants, getting a whopping dose of solar radiation, and trying to go into a place that is dangerous if not fatal for air breathers to go to. And this is your idea of a fun time?

How would you like it if Atlanteans started taking their spring break on your turf? Lets face it, if you started seeing large gatherings of people partying in your local graveyards and wrecking up the place every spring, you guys would get more than a little pissed. So lets make a deal. You guys STOP having parties in our graveyards and we wont START having them in yours! Oh, by the way, Poseidon doesn’t want you in the rivers and lakes either. That’s what gators and crocs were invented for!

Hugh Mann