X Marks The Spot

Screams from the basement are nothing new. It’s where we keep our evil third son, Hugo. It’s also where the videogames are. Usually the screams are from shooting/killing games. We lost the violent videogame battle years ago. But lately the screams come from a new kind of genre: pirate games. 

The boys of Evanston are obsessing over an open world game where you assume the role of old timey pirate and sail the seas in search of gold, skeletons and megalodons. Yes, you can shoot other kids, but that’s not the point. Which makes my soul feel better given the whole WWIII situation happening in Ukraine. So now the screams are, “Argh! Ahoy! Blouse shirts!”

One day on vacation, Luca and I found ourselves strolling along the beach, talking about pirates. Did pirates ever visit this surf spot? Did they drink margaritas at Don Julio’s restaurant? Did they stab that guy who plays tuba in the town square until 2am every night?

Luca discovered an old, rotten coconut in the sand. We immediately started a game called, “Throw the coconut into the surf.” For a kid who usually has seven screen going at any given time, a simple game of toss/retrieve was so simple. So beautiful.

The coconut quickly gained value. The coconut was gold. We morphed our game into the classic “build sand walls to protect thing from a million years of surf.” Dig moat. Build sand wall. Waves crash. Start over. 

In other words, perfection.

I got a little too hot (old man alert) so we decided to call it a day. But what to do with the coconut? Chuck it? Burn it? Take it home? Luca got an idea: What if we buried it?

Yes! “X” marks the spot. We looked for a perfect location. I suggested burying it between two topless sunbathers, but Luca suggested I not be a creep. We decided to bury it near a little bar where the patrons didn’t look like coconut thieves. 

We placed the nut into a little hole and found two big sticks for our “X.”

A few days went by, filled with surf lessons and snorkeling and bad hat purchasing. We were at the beach and I had assumed my position under an umbrella with my Nick Offerman book. I had recently purchased some roasted crickets from a beach vendor, which tasted like roasted crickets. They served the purposed of maintaining my “idiot” status among our wonderful neighbor girls. 

Luca suddenly remembered the coconut. Oh! Let’s see if it’s there! I leapt from my chair and we headed off with the enthusiasm of Blackbeard just before he murdered a bunch of people. 

Almost immediately I wished I had brought sandals. The midday sand was scorching. We “ouch ouch-ed” our way and ended up needing to stand in the surf for a couple minutes to sooth our burning tootsies.

Then came the issue of remembering where we actually buried the nut. It was by a bar, but the beach was littered with roughly 42,000 bars. The topless sunbathers were gone, apparently warned there was a creep around. 

So we would race up the beach, realize were in the wrong spot and then race back to the cool surf. 

Eventually we spotted the bar! With the bored people! Luca and I searched for the “X.” But no luck. There were a few old firepits around that contained lots of X carcasses. Well, who wants an old rotten coconut anyway?

Oh wait! Look. We spotted a half “X.” A capital “I.” Or a minus sign. We dove into the sand and dug. There it was! The rotten old nut. The greatest, most valuable rotten old nut in the world! 

We shouted and celebrated and danced and sang, “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.”

Then we chucked the coconut and went home.