My friend worked at a Greek restaurant in Wildwood, New Jersey. She arrived one day to find the chef stirring a vat of Tzatziki sauce – with his bare arm.
Elbow-deep in grossness pretty much describes Wildwood. It is the ocean playground of those with abundant tats, hairy chests, gold bling and Speedos. Hotels are the two-story walk-up type with coke machines in the stairwell (officially called “Doo-Wop” architecture – fun fact).
We go to Wildwood for the amazing seaside waterpark. One year we took the neighbor’s kids with us. They included two small boys that I stayed with while the bigger kids went to the slides and dive pools. Neither boy could swim well, and one of them was wearing a buoyant suit shaped like a strawberry. It was a hand-me-down from his older sister. I guess there’s just no pride when you’re four.
We went to the kiddie splash pool where there was a pirate ship. I suggested a game of hide and seek. I counted to ten with my eyes closed. Then I looked up and they were gone. Like Elvis has left the building gone, they had left the splash pool. They were somewhere out among the tattooed masses of the waterpark.
I panicked. I looked around everywhere. I mercifully spotted one of the brothers holding the hand of a confused and concerned looking stranger. One down. But where was the other? I ran to the information counter and explained that there was a missing kid. I described what he was wearing. The staff person was Russian. Imagine female Vladimir Putin using a loudspeaker to say, “Vee look for za strawberry. Da”. Not effective.
Just then my wife spotted him. The strawberry was at the top of the very highest water slide. Tube in hand, he was patiently waiting in line for his turn. Leaving his sibling with my wife I sprinted up the stairs, rudely elbowing kids out of the way. I arrived, panting and out of breath, and took him aside. He put his foot down: he wanted to go down the slide. In fact, there were two parallel slides side by side so kids could race. I caved. He and I took our positions in the respective slides and waited for the lifeguard to give us the green light.
GO! The strawberry took off like a leaf on a torrent, rocketing down the twists and the turns of the slide. I did not move. The water built up behind my back like the Hoover Dam. Nothing. The water began to spill over my shoulders. Still nothing. The lifeguard began to giggle. She suggested that maybe if I lay on my back it might help. So I did. The water poured over me like an island in a stream, for that is what I am: just too dam big for the water to move.
So I began to butt-shimmy down the waterslide, using my hands on either side like they do at the start of a bobsled race. All the way down: shimmy, shimmy, shimmy. I could hear peals of laughter behind me. I could see my wife at the bottom, gutting herself alongside the strawberry. I finally got to the bottom.
I then offered to get them Greek food for lunch.
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