My brother in law Jeff loves Old Orchard Beach
This was not
something I knew about Jeff until about a month ago when he and my sister
Felicia moved into their new house in Saco.... a mere 4.8 miles to Old Orchard
Beach
Old Orchard Beach (OOB) is, in Jeff's words, The Bangor State Fair with water, sand and Canadians
in speedos
He could not wait
to take us there
The water and sand
are, well, beach like
Jeff and Felicia
taught Lucy how to Boogie Board
Luce had an
absolute blast and laughed every time a wave knocked her over and gave a
victory whoop when she caught a wave and rode it into shore
The Fair element
is located at one end of the beach
It is a permanent
board walk of rides run by carnies who are apparently imported from the Slavic
countries
And I totally
forgot OOB is indeed a vacation destination for Canadians...and they do indeed
sport speedos
On top of that, as
if the Fair and foreigners in speedos were not enough, the streets are lined with food booths, kitschy stores and, the ever present booth at which you
can buy some of the classiest art ever created on a T-Shirt, a License plate, a
hat, coffee mug, key ring.....
That's right
I'm talking about
the Airbrushing Art Booth
The booth you
can't ever imagine purchasing anything from but you are so mesmerized by the
process, you stand there for extended periods of time enthralled with the
artistic process unfolding before your very eyes
I'm talking beach
sunset scenes complete with the names of the two young loves
Unicorns, monster
trucks, and/or cartoon charters personalized with your name in big bubble
letters
At some point,
when we decided we would make a trip to OOB, Jeff started talking about getting
my sister just such a license plate.... maybe the orangey/yellow/brownish
sunset beach scene with her name
Or a rainbow and
unicorn and hearts with her name and Summer 2016
Or their names
surrounded by hearts and the words Together Forever blazing across the
airbrushed night sky
In any case, Jeff
planted this seed of airbrushed wearable art in my head
And by the time we
arrived at the OOB Boardwalk, I had convinced myself that Lucy's summer would
not be complete unless she had a personalized airbrushed something....
So we wandered
through the Fair
We spent $15 on
games that we were a bit too cocky in thinking we could beat and walked away with a stuffed shark I'm pretty sure I saw in the dollar section of Target
We decided to wander up the street to poke our heads in a couple shops
But before we hit
the kitschy stores that lined the street boosting boogie boards and beach carts for $9 and hemp pullovers (2 for $15), we stopped at the Old Orchard Beach
Airbrush Booth
I brazenly told
Lucy she could pick out whatever she wanted
She immediately
honed in on a cat design
And though it was
a tabby cat in the sample book with a yellow background, she convinced the guy
she needed it to be a black cat like her Ziggy Boy with an orange background
because orange is her favorite color
Oh an if they
didn't mind, could they do her name in cursive...she loves how her name looks
in cursive
Sure, we can do that the cranky balding guy with bad teeth told her
For $28 he said to
me with a snarky scowl on his face and a tone of indifferent impatience in his
voice
I gulped
$28
Then I saw Lucy's
face
And I saw his face
peering at me out of his portable booth daring me to ruin my child's summer by
denying her this one of a kind airbrushed T-shirt
So I pulled out my
last two $20s and handed them over
And Lucy's summer
is complete
And Uncle Jeff,
you owe me $28