In this weekly column series, Bernie Shelly explores the strange, funny rituals of everyday surf life — from awkward line-up conversations and endless paddle-outs to bruised egos and near-collisions in the surf. At the centre is Ichabod: intense, stubborn and fiercely focused, the perfect foil for Bernie’s dry humour and sharp observations about friendship, etiquette and the absurd beauty of sharing waves with other people.
18. To Pee or Not to Pee.
That is the question. The one that Ichabod asked me. Discretely.
“Were you?”
“Were I what?”
My friend has a selective inclination towards reality as far as the weaker sex goes. He believes that women somehow have a different alimentary canal; that excretions are not a component of the female design.
He thinks that women can’t, or don’t, burp. Or pass wind from any other oriface, by any other name. Don’t break wind. Don’t pass gas. Don’t get to use the f-art function.
Or avail oneself of urinary relief in a wetsuit.
So when he catches that faraway look, that rapturous trance, on my face, his shock is real and he takes off in mortal fear.
“Animals in distress urinate,” he says when he gets back to the line-up. “Sharks pick up on that.”
I shake my Gath-clad head. “They pick up on fish pong. And seal pong.”
“So why did everyone panic when my nose bled?”
“Myths abound. Scientists have debunked this.”
He respects science. “Well then, if you must, dispense with it when you first enter the water — give it time to flush. And not near other people.”
“Flailing around will more likely attract sharks.”
“Are you insinuating . . .”
He whizzes off frantically, like a bee at a window pane, and bumbles straight into a surf school of wide-eyed learners.
After everyone is back on their boards, and the girl in the purple suit stops wailing, he points out, like an animal-rights activist, that no people were harmed by this incident.
Perhaps it was the instructor’s harsh words. Perhaps it was my thinly disguised mirth at his utter mortification. Perhaps because I told him he was in hot water and he should look before he leaps.
Whatever, it’s not long before he is seething with resentment. And picking me out for using clichéd idioms. He believes they make for lazy discourse.
“That instructor sure bit your head off,” I say. “But his bark is worse than his bite. He’s up in arms but it’s just hot air.”
And the finale that really gags him: “Silence is golden, my friend.” Which he takes literally.
Check in next week for more lessons with Ichabod.