Top Five Beach Bums
Beach Bums Abound
The next time you take a beach holiday in the sun, look carefully at the people around you on the beach and see if you can spot some of types of beach bums listed in this lens. You will be amazed just how many there are on the typical beach. Let's take a look..
1.The Misery Bum
The Misery Bum hates the sand and the sea, in fact he hates sun holidays altogether. Usually a father, the MB has to go because the kids want to go. He sits and reads the paper, and moans about it being too hot – or too cold. He never gets within 100 yards of the sea, and never joins in any games. He ignores his kids and positively encourages them to leave him in peace. If you hear a father say “why don't you go and play in the sea” or “that wet sand all the way over there is better for sandcastles”, it's probably the voice of a Misery Bum.
2.The Fit Dad Bum
The FDB has a mission in life, on the beach as well as anywhere else. That mission is to look fitter and “more of a man” than any other Dad on the beach. FDB is fit, and wants everyone to know it. Typically, the children of the FDB will be run ragged as they are cajoled into playing endless games of beach volleyball, cricket, tennis or anything that allows for a dramatic dive after the ball or a loud macho “yessssss get in!” as FDB scores get another goal at the expense of his poor kids.
3.The Posing Bum
This is, alas, another role usually played by men of a certain age. That age is usually around 35 or 40. It's a mid-life thing. Younger men are fitter and better looking, and PB knows it. He tries ever harder to compete with the younger generation, with decreasing success and increasing desperation. Out come the skimpy Speedos, and on goes the fake tan, a natural complement to the thinning but carefully bleached hair. The Posing Bum doesn't do much on the beach in case that some of that precious hair moves out of place or something escapes from the confines of that sliver of swim wear. There comes a day when the PB leaves the beach for good, defeated by the ravages of time, never to return.
4.The Water Bum
Whether it's a cheap holiday to Tenerife or all inclusive package holiday to Turkey, wherever you go, whatever the weather, you can be sure that if there is sea, there will be a Water Bum. The WB is very annoying to most teenagers on the beach, because while they spend all day bemoaning the fact that the water is FREEZING, the WB, typically a man, typically over 60, will calmly and purposefully walk directly to the water and into it, with no hesitation or fuss, and proceed to swim out as far as the eye can see, not returning for at least 20 minutes. When he finally does return, the WB strides out of the water and up the beach with not so much as a heartbeat out of place. Parents then use the WB as perpetual proof that their teenage sons and daughters are just plain bone-idle.
5.The Sand Bum
The SB is a Peter Pan type of person - usually over the age of 30 and always digging around in the sand, making shapes, castles, roads, sculptures of naked things - whatever. The SB just can't get out of that childhood sandcastle thing and always, but always takes holidays in the sun and spends every day on the beach. At first, he will have kids to pretend to build for, but once they have grown up he will abandon any pretence of "doing it for the kids" and just carry on regardless, watched by some with pity and by other, less brave, would-be-SBs, with envy.
This lens was brought to you by someone not quite right from SuntrapHolidays.co.uk.
