Park 'n Snore

This weekend we engaged in a popular ritual here in the East: getting up at 5 a.m. to drive to the ocean 3 hours away, lying on a bit of sand with roughly the populations of Virginia, Massachusetts, and New Jersey combined (and possibly Ecuador as well), then driving 3 hours home, stopping periodically for caffeine so as not to fall asleep at the wheel. This is considered relaxing.

The most popular activity at the beach, judging from the amount of people engaging in it, was the Parking Space Search. You need a ticket to get into this game, and what makes it so much fun is that it is a bit like Musical Chairs, with about nine fewer parking spots available than cars. So around and around the parking lot you all go, vying to be the first to nab an open spot before your ticket times out and a large crane comes and bodily removes your car and all its occupants from the lot.

This game is also good for teaching aggression, as the more time it takes you to find a spot, the more aggressive your tactics become. These include:

1. Rolling down your window to tell someone who is already parked but not leaving that they have won the Mystery Lottery but must collect it, in person and in their car, at the other end of town.
2. Making an anonymous call to the towing company to report a disabled vehicle needing removal from the space where you want to park.
3. Engaging in Car Croquet, wherein you bump a car -- ideally smaller than your own -- out of its spot, which now becomes YOUR spot.
4. Running down innocent children and dogs and little old people and anyone else unlucky enough to come to the beach that day and not leave soon enough.

A twist to the Parking Space Search is the Disappearing Space. In this version, one of you in the car spots an open space in the row next to you. (Note: This open spot is NEVER in your row.) The driver excitedly heads to the next row to park in the open spot, but by the time you get there, it has disappeared, and indeed it appears that all spots in that row have been occupied since 1952. All the car owners have probably died riding the rides on the boardwalk rather than give up their parking spot to anyone. The average driver spots about 12.7 open spots before (a) actually getting one or (b) becoming personally acquainted with that crane we mentioned earlier.

If you are lucky enough to snag (a), this is what you do once you actually park and stagger to the beach:

1. Lay right on the hot sand, too exhausted to get out your beach towels.
2. Think about getting up for lunch, but decide it is too much trouble. There are plenty of food droppings from previous beachgoers if you need sustenance.

And if you're like us, you'll find the whole experience so relaxing that you can't wait to do it again!