The beach is a miracle of space.

Miles of sand, open horizon, endless options which is why it is always astonishing when I settle into my chair, stake my umbrella, exhale… and a family of four sets up three feet away.

Not nearby.

Not vaguely adjacent.

Three feet.

Close enough to feel the cooler thud into the warm sand. Close enough to be lightly misted with their sunscreen. Near enough that I now know the children’s names, snack preferences, and emotional range.

Then the soundtrack arrives.

Two kids screaming like competitive smoke alarms.

A boombox calibrated to drown out the ocean.

A phone on speaker, broadcasting a conversation no one asked for.

To be clear, I enjoy children. I do not enjoy unnecessary proximity.

Children scream, that’s their job.

Waves crash, that’s theirs.

But choosing to sit directly next to a stranger on an otherwise empty beach? That’s a philosophy.

Silence unsettles some people. Noise fills the gaps. And so they cluster toward umbrellas, toward bodies, toward anything already occupied as if empty space were an error.

This isn’t really about the beach.

It is the same instinct that some idiot parks beside your car in an empty lot or claims the treadmill next to yours when sixteen others sit unused. Not malice. Just a baffling confidence that other people will adapt.

Sometimes they do.

Sometimes they move.

Sometimes they seethe.

Sometimes they write.

Because if the devil truly had menopause, it would not be the hot flashes that broke her.

It would the fact that you cannot fix stupid.

So she rises from the sand and valiantly stumbles to an empty plot overburdened by the beach chair, umbrella and beach bag filled with lunch, sunscreen and towels.

I caved, but I am once again at peace that is until the next clueless asshole arrives and sits on top of me when they is beyond amble space to allow me to read in relative silence.