Life Can be a Real Beach (Most Embarrassing Moments)

Member Name: QuinnElaine

Product:	Most Embarrassing Moments
Date:	06/05/02 (225 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Hmmm, a unique form of sand art?

Disadvantages: Feeling conspicuous under a full moon. (Pardon the pun)

The majority of my life has been pretty turbulent and for the most part I have been the calm eye around which the storms have raged. Despite the complexity of my early years, I will attempt to keep things simple here. If you want a more complete version of those years feel free to check out my piece titled, Truth is Stranger Than Fiction. Now, allow me to focus my mind’s eye and bring out the Tour Guide aspect of my personality.

“Hello every one! I will lead you in a leisurely fashion up to the viewing deck where you can get a good look at one of my most embarrassing and death defying moments. No pushing or flash photography please, stay together now, and for your own safety I advise you to stay behind the rail...”

In my teen years I was living with a paternal aunt in Pennsylvania when the already less than ideal situation collapsed and we simply couldn’t stand to be in the same room as one another. Not wanting to quit high school in my senior year and having no other relatives in the area (besides a couple of old dears living in a senior citizen high rise), I called up my Mom who was living in California with her new husband and his two daughters. Mom was quite eager to have me back under her wing after so long and before I could say “Surreal”, I was packed and on a plane headed west.

I was somewhat apprehensive as to the success of this venture. I had no qualms about either Mom or Don, they are wonderful people and if you can’t get along with *them* there must be something wrong with you. My younger stepsister, Laura, wasn’t really a worry either as we had always gotten along rather well but her older sister, Cheryl, had apparently made up her mind that we were NOT going to get along. However, I was determined to make the best of things and get along. Whether she liked the idea or not.

I quickly found that this meant tagging along to the many and varied parties to which she dra
gged both her sister and myself. Ok, she didn’t have to drag her sister since she had her own friends in the crowd, but after the first three times I would have much rather stuck around home and amused myself. Two of Cheryl’s better traits are a natural talent for manipulation and being a dedicated control freak so compliance whenever possible helped to ease tensions between us. (Have a mentioned that we Really don't get along?)

Perhaps the only exception to my reluctance was when a beach party was the choice of entertainment for that night. I couldn’t really tell you if this was *because* or *in spite of* the events that occurred at my first beach party with my stepsisters and their entourage of friends. I can say, without a doubt, that the beaches of California are one of the very few things that I truly miss. I spent half of my childhood splashing about in the Pacific Ocean and building castles in the warm, soft sand, so I am sure that these happy memories add to that longing where the events of *That* night do not!

The beach of choice for this crowd was one that I don’t believe I had ever frequented as a child, but Topanga beach was really a lovely little spot. I especially liked the winding road that led through scenic Topanga canyon. I liked the thrill of sneaking onto the beach at night with blankets, firewood, our alcoholic beverage choices, and whatever other paraphernalia we had decided was essential for that evening. Yes, this is illegal; especially the alcohol as most of us were not quite on the threshold of legal drinking age, but Man O’ Day, was it fun!

We would hit the beach just at sunset, carry all our gear down the pathways from the parking lot at the top of the cliff, and have everything set up to our satisfaction by the time the sun dove into the ocean with a final sibilant hiss. It never took too long for all the ’drifters’ to be drawn by the beacon of our bonfire. There
was an endless variety of people toting beverages, wood, or guitars who had also decided that Topanga was the best place for a party that night and being mainly of a friendly mien, we were all more than happy to pool our efforts into one large party. Now, since this was not a legal activity by any stretch of the imagination, there were certain established routines one had to learn.

When the cops showed up at the edge of the cliff, which the nearly always did at least once, we would all be dutifully apologetic, put out the fire, gather all of our gear and move off down the beach and head into the trees that grew along the foot of the cliff. Once there, everyone would hide under the dense bushes, along with our gear, shielding ourselves further from view by covering up with our dark sleeping bags.

This may seem like a thread-bare device, but honestly it was so dark under those trees and bushes they would have to step on you to find you! In any case, the police rarely took the time to clamber down the steep path just to break up our keggers. I am sure they had better things to do and hey, who wants to work all night with sand in their shoes? Someone would act as look out, give the all clear, and in the blink of an eye the fires would be lit and the party well under way once more. We had this down to part of the performance down to a science.

It was understood that no girl from our party would wander off alone or without someone else from our group. Finally, since the public bathrooms were, naturally, closed two sites were traditionally declared Girl’s Spot and Guys Spot when one felt the need and in extreme cases there was an all night restaurant not too far down the road.

I have no real clue where the Guys Spot was, except to say that it was in the opposite direction from where we went to hide under the bushes when the cops came, but the Girl’s Pit Stop was at a bend in one of the access routes that led up to the pa
rking areas. Now, even then I had done my fair share of partying in the outdoors so I wasn’t a novice at this, but the chosen site seemed rather exposed to me. I was used to a nice little stand of trees or bushes under natural lighting and here I was at the edge of a wide path, halfway up a cliff, more or less within the bright ring thrown down by one of the lights in the parking lot.

This was my first time to Topanga, we had just gotten everything set up when Laura tagged me as her Bathroom Buddy and she led the way to the designated Spot. Once there, I wasn’t entirely ready to take Laura’s word for it that just because we could see everyone down at the party didn’t mean that they couldn’t see us! So, I inched towards the utter darkness at the edge of the path where the light was abruptly stopped by the trees. She had just enough time to look up and say, “Watch out for the....” When I abruptly found myself standing on air! Instinctively, my hands flew up and I miraculously managed to grab onto a sturdy branch. Naturally, it was exactly the right distance from the safety of path’s edge to be ‘too far’ for me to reach.

I remember Laura’s shocked face as she stared at me dangling from a branch over the complete darkness that yawned beneath my twitching toes. Quite probably the only one who looked more surprised was me, but I couldn’t attest to that as I had other things on my mind at the time. Hmm, well I had already attempted to regain my former perch without success and I could see that the angle at which this particular branch grew would have led me further from my goal if I attempted to move hand-over-hand towards the trunk.

On one side was the well lit ring from which I had so unwittingly launched myself, ahead of me lay the moonlit panorama of the beach and the party in all their splendor, and all other possible options were swallowed up by shadows of the deepes
t, most profound and relentless shade of Black. I pondered the immeasurable drop into the darkness beyond my feet. For safety’s sake I did inch up towards that stouter end of the branch anyway since it seemed like the best idea at the time, then I looked at Laura who had finally managed to scrape her jaw off of the ground and I asked, “ok, now what?”.

Sensibly, her reply was, “Stay right there! I’ll run down below and try to spot you with the flashlight so we can see how far a drop it is!” Not waiting for my bemused response, she took off like the Diana herself coursing before her hounds (read up on your Greek mythology if you are clueless to my reference!). I had an excellent view really, as I wondered if someone was out there somewhere with a camera.

The clouds sailed across a full moon whose light sparkled like gems upon the dark waves. I was rather amused when I saw Laura sprint into view, leap over the fire trailing the roll of toilet paper behind her like a banner and broke from light chuckles to full laughter when her fluttering streamer began to catch fire causing her to toss it into the sand. She was just disappearing into the wooded darkness when an ominous sound cut across my laughter .

“Crrreee- (no way! It can’t!)-eee-( Oh sh*t! It is!)- eeak ! SNAP!” I couldn’t help myself, I began to laugh harder than I have ever laughed before. All I could think of were a couple of lines from the Arlo Guthrie song, The Motorcycle Song, “Lucky for me, I didn’t crash into the side of the mountain... I went over the cliff! Oh! I don’t want a pickle, I just wanna ride on my motorsickle!”

Poor Laura, all she heard were the sounds of my loud, unexpected plunge and peals of hilarious laughter as I plummeted towards the sand with the faulty tree branch clutched in one hand. I had just enough time and presence of mind to toss that potential hazard away f
rom me before I hit bottom. Between my laughter and the impact, she spent a frantic few minutes screaming my name and searching through the darkness before she finally wandered close enough for me to grab her ankle.

Not a great move since it almost caused her to faint and she stepped on me, but hey at least I was found. After catching my breath, we assured ourselves that I had miraculously come through my brief stint as a disoriented bat with no greater harm than sore ribs, a slightly twisted ankle, and some very minor scrapes. I picked my *still* obscenely sober butt off the ground and made a bee-line for my bottle of wine to mourn the senseless demise of an innocent tree branch.

I declared myself to be a walking accident and placed myself under immediate quarantine upon the largest of our spread blankets. The party agreed with me unanimously and they spent the rest of the evening solicitously observing my recovery and cheerfully donating drinks to me in my “Safety Zone”. It was one of the best parties I ever attended during my last stay in California.

According to the best estimates on the following morning, I fell from the approximate height of 15 feet, although that particular drop has loomed much larger in my memory. I have since formed the opinion that the name Topanga came from the sound of the first person that found this beach by accidentally falling from the full height of the cliff, although I cannot decide if this was the sound of their impact or merely the first semi-coherent word-like sound that they managed to make afterwards.

“Well, that concludes our tour for today. We hope that everyone enjoyed the show and please feel free to stop in at the souvenir shop where you can purchase commemorative hang gliders, our excusive Dignity headstones, and a stiff round of sympathy drinks. Bye-bye now! Come again! Bye-bye!...”

Summary: