David Hasselhoff, Eat your Heart Out

Hoo Boy! Do I ever have a humdinger of a story...

Before going any furter, I urge you to go watch this youtube video. It will definitely add to your enjoyment of this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X9AUZoG0I0

Pants on the ground. Pants on the ground. Looking like a fool with your pants on the ground... catchy, ehh?

On the last day of our Mexican/Californian adventure, Kelly and I decided to spend some time on one of San Diego's gorgeous beaches. Having learned through a serendipitous email just days before we left for vacation that CA beaches have special beach wheelchairs available for use by disabled persons, I was over the moon at the thought of "walking" the beach and searching for shells. (The beach had become something I could not do about six years ago after gradually becoming more and more difficult.)

We traveled to the southern-most beach, just a couple of miles from the border with Mexico, on a drive that was phenomenally beautiful. At the lifeguard station, the poor lifeguard seemed a little bit puzzled about where the chair was stored, how to assign it to me, etc. (He was sixty years-old and was obviously tired of his job saying it was nothing like Baywatch... monotonous, low-pay, no retirement... stuff like that. He was about as effervescent as flat diet coke.)

This is where the story gets good and I hope you've read this far because you are about to be rewarded. When I stood up to transfer from my standard wheelchair to this weirdly specialized motorized chair with huge rubber tires, I felt my pants slide down over my hips, smooth as silk, and then begin gaining momentum as they slid down my thighs to my knees. My quick reflexes stopped them from puddling in a heap at my ankles. Yes, old, lifeguard excitement man was standing inches away. Just when he thought his job could offer nothing new! And I started babbling like diet coke exploding from a shaken bottle, "Kelly! Look! My diet is working!" I didn't care the Mr. Old, but still slightly hot, lifeguard man had seen me standing with my hole-free (thank God for that grace!)white panties shining for all the world to see.


I'm almost certain he audibly exhaled a sigh of relief as I toggled the joy stick forward and descended the sand bank towards the ocean's edge. His relief was short-lived. Two minutes later, I looked up to see him barrelling across the sand in his big, shiny red truck at a hurried clip. Leaning out the window, he hollerered with a BIT more animation than he had exhibited before, "Oh, you can take it on the moist sand, but you can't get it wet!" ( You see, I had made a beeline for the waves. In my excitement about feeling waves lapping at my feet and reveling in the sensation of sand receeding beneath my toes, a larger wave had landed and water had swirled mid-tire. I was trying to remember what I knew about flash floods and driving through swollen creeks and wondered if I was about to be swept out to sea on my newfound toy.)

Do you agree with me that this would have been an excellent plotline for Baywatch?

After about an hour of "beach-combing" we headed back to the lifeguard station only to find the battery was almost exhausted and the chair kept lurching to a stop. Enter the same red pick-up truck with a different oldish lifeguard coming to the rescue. (He seemed perturbed that LG#1 had not gone over the safety checklist nor had me sign the liability release. (Bet they were sweating bullets when they observed me from the glass enclosed guard tower as I was about to be swept towards Hawaii on their chair! Can't you just see the newspaper headlines!!!)

We managed to push me up the dune and parked outside the station.

I stood up to transfer to my own wheelchair, and,... yes, I think you know where this is going... I'll be danged if my pants didn't begin their descent towards my ankles once again. "Woops!", exclaimed LG#2. "Kelly, look! It wasn't a fluke. These pants really are too big!"

I'm glad I was able to relieve their boredom. It was fun appearing in this parody of Baywatch. (And my freakin' pants FELL off! Twice!!! Well, really, three times... again at the airport later that evening for the Indian cab driver. San Diego, I'll definitely come back. This was too much fun!)