Chapter 2: The Meeting

"Do you know any good places to eat?", Scot asked as they walked up to us. Vicki and I looked at each other. This was unexpected. We expected to get hit in the head by a frisbee, not be asked a direct question. (Much later, we learned that there was some discussion between the two of them on whether or not to throw the frisbee at us). We immediately became more interested. Straightforwardness- we liked that. Of course, we did not have an answer to this question. We only knew where the Kmart was at that point. Vicki smiled up at them and said, "No, we just arrived last night". I sat there sullenly thinking "I hate men". Because I'm mature that way. Anyway, they proceeded to ask us where we were from, where we were staying etc.. During this period of time, Vicki had moved from a reclined position in her lounge chair to sitting up. Tim proceeded to sit down on the bottom half of Vicki's chair. Scot looked at me and I just sat there, reclined, not moving. He had to sit down beside me in the sand. As it turned out, Scot and Tim were staying in the condominium building next to ours. This conversation rocked on for awhile. Finally, it was time to go in and get ready for dinner. Tim and Scot asked us if we wanted to go for a walk on the beach later that night. Vicki and I looked at each other. Now, at this point, we've been best friends for years and we usually can tell what the other is thinking simply by looking. We stared at each other for a minute. After all, we're talking about walking on the beach, at night, with strange guys, (who are yankees- ha ha!)... hmmm. But we decided to brave it and said yes.

Later that evening as we were getting ready for our walk, Vicki turned to me and handed me a black cylinder. I said, "What's this?". She said, "It's mace- I think you should carry it". Um, what? Why me? Can you see that- us, on the beach, with me using mace and incapacitating both Tim and Scot? Who are we, Charlies Angels? Granted, I was the more sullen of the two of us and maybe she figured that I had an itchy trigger finger. Of course the problem was that I was wearing jean shorts. Those shorts fit rather well and when I put the mace in my pocket, it showed. Badly. So, what to do? After some debate, I finally decided to carry it in my hand. We walked down to the beach and they were waiting for us. I moved the mace to the opposite side and tried to hide it. We decided to walk to the boardwalk. Mostly during this time, Tim and Vicki were talking. They hit it off instantly. I was worrying they were going to see the mace and think we were psychos. Scot and I, being much more reserved, followed along and didn't say much. We walked down to the pier and decided to walk to the end of it. Even in the evening, people were still fishing. As we walked back, Tim looked over at this man who had caught what appeared to be some type of minnow. I mean, this fish was tiny. And this man was proud! He held it up as we walked by and Tim said loudly, "It's a keeper!". The man glared. Vicki and I were horrified. Little did we know this was foreshadowing for the rest of our lives! Tim and Scot continue to embarrass us regularly! :)

We walked back to the beach in front of our building. Tim and Scot asked us to meet for breakfast in the morning. Hmmm. Well, how bad could that be? We said yes. That would end up being our first (double) date.

To be continued... Chapter 3: The Waverunners