I’ve thought occasionally about a cottage at the beach. Not for full time living, you understand, but for vacations and the like. But in my mind it’s a simple place, a shack really, with electricity and plumbing (I needs my toilet and my hot coffee) but not much in the way of luxuries. For one thing, I wouldn’t have air-conditioning. Right on the beach, even in Florida, you don’t really need it if you have the proper kind of place to live — in other words, a simple sort of place with lots of open screened windows. And I wouldn’t have luxe furniture, or cable tv (heck, I wouldn’t have tv). Since I only have a cell phone these days I wouldn’t need a phone line. That would mean no internet, but that’s what coffee houses are for. And the whole point of a getaway place is to “get away.”
Here is the plan of my dream beach mansion: basically a one-room house with a bathroom, it could have just a shower, I don’t need a tub for a vacation. I could do with a kitchenette, or no kitchen at all — I actually have stashed in my closet one of those combo coffee machine/toaster/tiny fry pan on top jobs that pop up in bargain stores (I got mine at Big Lots). I also have a larger electric fry pan. And of course I’d have a simple grill outside, just a pile of concrete blocks with a metal grill stuck in them, or I’d get a cheap charcoal grill from Walmart.
I’ve already said no luxe furniture, just some cast-off stuff maybe, or those cheap resin chairs and a beach lounger thing. And a simple cot to sleep on. The shack could be made of wood, like old Florida houses (like the house I grew up in, actually, which lasted through fifty-five years of Miami weather only to succumb to the wrecker ball). And when a hurricane came along and wiped it out, it wouldn’t be like I lost a million-dollar mansion with all the conveniences of the hectic city life I was supposedly leaving behind.
You know, that whole “it won’t happen to me” mentality? You do know that’s like painting a big target on your behind, right? God likes to keep in practice.
3 Responses to “Beached”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
September 19th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
That’s the ticket. When I was growing up on the Gulf coast, we had a weekend place. We did have lights and gas, but for a long time no TV and we never did get a phone. To this day I hate phones, and still don’t have a cell.
September 19th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Andrea, you have just described one version of Heaven. I may not be a water baby (my Heaven involves cottonwood trees on a river in the middle of the prairie), but if you stick a little lean-to on the back for a simple kitchen & place to hang a hammock, I’ll cook & do your dishes for a couple weeks out of the year!
September 20th, 2008 at 6:38 am
I’ve thought about the same thing but as a ‘permanent’ residence–if I really wanted to do it, sooner or later I could find a job ‘at the beach’ that would pay at least as much as I’m earning these days. The problem is that I begin forgetting that I need to do things when I spend more than a couple of days at the ocean, ha: paradise wouldn’t last in those circumstances.