THE DARKER SIDE OF SURFING, PART 2
12-19-07
By Corky Carroll
A couple of weeks ago I opened the discussion about the darker aspects of surfing. I mentioned the evils of the dreaded “wet wetsuit and/or wet rash guard smells,” two distinct aromas that, if bottled, could easily become weapons of mass destruction. Hey, Osama, sniff this!!! I also wrote about the horrors of nipple rash and the kicked-a-rock-while-looking-at-the-waves damaged toe syndrome. Neither something that you want for Christmas. Trust me on that. I must have touched a real surfing nerve because I have received many emails from you fellow sufferers of these and other surf related not so fun things. So today we dive even deeper into the darker side of surfing.
A classic surfers problem is the always embarrassing and totally unexpected “sinus release.” What happens is that salt water somehow gets stuck in your sinus cavity and stays there until the exact moment that would be the worst time ever for it to come out. I have no idea how eight ounces of salt water has enough of a brain to know this, but it does. It lurks there and just waits until you are over at your girlfriend’s house having dinner with her parents for the first time. And just when you are about to take a polite bite of your baked potato it comes gushing out of your nose like somebody turned on a faucet. Right into your baked potato. It’s a real party favorite. And you have no idea this is going to happen until it has already happened. And then there you are. This is not good. Although it is even worse if it waits until after dinner and you and your girlfriend are alone in the car and you are learning over and giving her a really passionate and hopefully “leading to better things” kinda kiss. That is a really bad time for it. Really, really not good. And yes, both of these have happened to me.
Another really bad one is the painful “bungee cord zap.” This usually happens when you are using a bungee to tie your board, or boards, on top of the car. You hook one side on and then go over to the other and pull the cord tight and hook on that side. But the thing is not really hooked onto the first side all that well and just as you have it stretched to the limit, and are struggling to hook it on your side, the first side comes off and the cord nails you in the face with lightning speed and a savage blow. This can be extremely dangerous and can really hurt you badly. People have lost teeth and eyes and noses and had all sorts of bad injuries in this way. I know. I would still be a pretty man today if I hadn’t suffered so many horribly disfiguring bungee cord injuries. Really.
And speaking of tying the boards on the car. One of the worst ways to start off a surf day is to forget to tie the boards on the top of the car. This is most definitely not good. You put them up there and then go back into the house to grab your wetsuit or wax or something else you forgot. Maybe grab a cup of coffee to keep you warm because it is December and it is freezing. And then you come back out and jump in the car and take off. Why do they never come off as you are pulling out of the driveway and maybe land on the lawn? Noooooooo. They, for some unknown reason, wait until he have to brake hard at an intersection and then come bouncing off your hood and onto the street where they slide right into the path of an oncoming eighteen wheeler screaming across the intersection. This is how two boards become four or eight boards very fast. Not good. Or sometimes they wait until you are on the freeway going much faster than you should to get to the beach because you know that this is the best day in the last twenty years. You hear something weird and look in your rear view mirror just as your boards are smashing into the windshield of the highway patrol car that has been chasing you with its red lights on that you didn’t even know was there because you were so intent on getting to the surf. No kids, that is very not good. Traffic school will not help in this case.
O.K. those are a few more to think about. Email me your favorites. I plan on continuing this little series in my non-stop, sometimes super-human, effort to protect you, my amazing readers, from any of this pain and heartache.
CHRISTMAS IN SURF CITY
The Wave ~ 12-19-07
By Corky Carroll
I love the Christmas season. Something about all the bright colored lights and the music and the fact that everyone seems to be all happy and running around with smiles on their faces. No matter where you are in the world this time of year is special. There are places though, like in the tropics or in the southern hemisphere, that it is hot and it seems weird that it is Christmas. In Australia they have Santa riding in on a surfboard, which is pretty cool really. I sometimes spend the holidays at my casa in Mexico and it is sort of the same thing down there. We put lights on the palm trees and make it look all festive but it still seems strange to wake up on Christmas morning and have it ninety degrees outside.
Here in the beautiful Orange County we enjoy what is about as close to a perfect climate as possible. It is warm in the summer but not so hot that you can’t breath and it is cold in the winter but no so cold that your car won’t start. How good is that? It’s good. Really good. Santa can come on his sleigh and still be wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Ya gotta love that.
I was at the new mall here in Huntington Beach not long ago shopping for Christmas presents. It was pretty confusing trying to figure out what to get for my kids. These days we have way too many choices. I asked the Amazing Kasey, my fifteen-year-old daughter, what she wanted this year? She took a few moments in careful thought and then looked me straight in the eyes and without a hint of doubt she answered, “A Porsche.” I thought she was joking and I laughed and waited for her real answer. A minute when by and then she said, “Well?”
I said, “Well what?”
To which she uttered with a slight annoyance yet completely straight face, “Don’t you want to even know what color?”
Yes, we do live in Orange County. And in fact I am sure there are fifteen-year-old kids probably getting Porsches for Christmas this year. Unfortunately, at least for my daughter, my daughter will not be one of them.
I was thinking about this when I was shopping and a memory of a Christmas past popped into my little three cells still flickering brain. It was the year that the big thing for little kids was the “Tickle me Elmo” doll. These things were such hot presents that you could not get one anywhere. People were selling them on eBay for hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Even the stores that did have them were charging like ten to fifty times the real price. We were one of the families that did not know that until it was almost too late. About two weeks before Christmas we went out to buy one for Kasey, who was probably about four years old at the time. We were in shock to find out that they were selling for over three hundred dollars in the stores. Naturally we thought that was nuts as the normal retail price was more like thirty dollars. So we didn’t buy one. BIG MISTAKE. All up to a couple of days before Christmas we kept asking Kasey what she wanted and all she ever replied was the Tickle me Elmo. Finally we figured he had to bite the bullet and fork up the big bucks for the doll. But by then there were scarce. Finally I had to make a last minute death drive to Hesperia on Christmas Eve to pay some lady that had an ad in the Register six hundred big ones for Elmo.
Kasey was very happy so it was all worth it. Although a few days later she ran Elmo over with her big wheel and he would never laugh when you ticked him anymore. Instead he let out a sort of chirping sound that was more like a canary.
I was thinking about this and it made me glad that there were no Elmos this year. But still she is not getting a Porsche. I did the usual thing and told her that she was getting an apple and if she was lucky maybe a box of raisins in her stocking. Why did she roll her eyes and say,
“Yeah dad, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.” Kids in China would be so happy with that. But then, we do not live in China do we? This is the O.C.