Myrtle Beach Daze

I celebrated my unemployment and coincidentally my 41st birthday with a trip to Myrtle Beach, SC. Admittedly this was a step down from last year’s birthday. To toast my 40th birthday I had gone to Paris, France with some friends and sipped champagne on a yacht as we drifted down the Seine. I knew Myrtle Beach wouldn’t quite compare, but I was loathe to spend a lot of money with no new job prospects on the horizon.

We found ourselves at an ocean front bar called Ocean Annie’s, and I realized that Myrtle Beach is where hot chicks from the ‘80’s come to die. My friends and I were awash in a sea of forty-something women with big hair, eyeliner, and high heeled espadrilles. They were grouped in clusters around the circular oak tables nursing cigarettes and warm beer. Many of them were still attractive, but the years of smoking and tanning had taken a toll. Their expressions were as wooden as the bar stools they were sitting upon, and nearly as weather-beaten. Not that the men were any better. Draped in Big Johnson muscle T’s and crowned with their regal mullets, they sounded their barbaric yawps (actually more like “Woo Hoo’s”) over the sound system--which was serenading us with a medley of bands named after geographic hotspots (Boston, Asia, Kansas, etc.) .

Once we had settled in, however, I found myself having a good time. The view of the ocean was gorgeous, and the beers were cold. The late afternoon sun felt great, and the familiarity of the music was comforting. I’ll take classic rock over some angry rapper screaming at me any day. Maybe these people were on to something--you don’t have to spend a lot of money to “get away from it all”. It’s just a matter of finding the beauty in what is offered to you. As if to confirm my revelation, suddenly “Obsession” by Animotion came over the speakers. This was a huge hit from my high school days that I hadn’t heard in years. My friends were equally excited to hear it, and our table let out a collective yawp of our own in approval.

At that moment, my eyes locked with one of the big haired babes at a table across from where I was sitting. Through the haze of cigarette smoke obscuring her stony features, I suddenly had a flash of clairvoyance and knew exactly what she was thinking: “This must be where hot gay guys from the ‘80’s come to die.”