Last week Kate and Safety Carrot and I went up north to Haliburton.

Haliburton is a place in Ontario where there are many, many lakes. Some of these lakes are big and some are small, and all of them are full of fat men in their late 40s riding Sea-Doos.

A Sea-Doo is a summertime snowmobile you can drive across water. It is like a cross between a motorboat and a motorcycle, except that it is painted bright neon green or pink and is therefore wicked uncool. It is a water moped.

This is all just background, and is frankly a little unfair. The cottage we were renting was on a very nice little lake, and most of the time it was totally unsullied by Sea-Doos. But.

On our first morning there we went out to the beach. It was all shady on account of the birch trees lining the shore. So we moved a little bit to the left, to the sandy patch in front of the neighbouring cottage. It was sunny, which was very nice indeed, and its sand was raked into gorgeous straight lines. Seriously, this patch of beach could have been a bunker at Augusta National. It was wicked brilliant luxurious.

The old fart who owned the cottage attached to the wicked nice beach came out to talk to us. He seemed happy to have the company. He told us he and his wife lived there from April to November. He said it was quiet and, er, nice.

He was a very boring man, frankly, and he Would Not Stop Talking, but he was letting us make sandcastles on his sunny patch of beach so we figured it was an OK tradeoff. His name was Hank.

Then.

His son-in-law, who was thirty-ish but had the body of a beer-drinking overeater born in the 1930s, came out onto the beach with a dog. We said hi and how are you and nice weather, eh?

He said this:

"..."

This made us nervous and uncomfortable, so we said hi again and how was your drive up and do you spend all summer up here?

He said this:

"..."

So then Kate asked him point-blank.

"You don't mind that we're here on your beach, do you?"

(Remember this: We already had the blessing of the actual landlord. At this point we are dealing only with the fragile sensibilities of an over-entitled son-in-law.)

"Uh," son-in-law replied, "not reeeeeeaaallly."

Chastened, we packed up our pails and shovels and went back over to the shady beach in front of our own rental cottage. Hank shuffled embarrasedly and went back up his walkway out of sight. Meanwhile, Buttface Son-In-Law waddled out onto his dock, where he set to tinkering with a two-seater Sea-Doo.

"Golly," we said to each other when we were back on safe terrain. "How unfriendly." We all agreed that Buttface Son In Law was not very nice at all.

Then Buttface Son In Law's dog came over to our shady patch of beach. He did not acknowledge us or even sniff us. Instead, he headed directly for the mossy ground beneath our own personal picnic table. There, he crouched down and dropped a large steaming filthy dogpoo.

"Gee whiz," we said, "Buttface Son In Law really holds a grudge, eh?"

Posted by Bret at August 26, 2003 11:23 PM