Leanne Phillips

To hear the Beach Boys tell it, every California girl is blonde, tan and can ride the waves on the most bombin’ day with the best of them. As a woman who has lived in California all of my life, I’m here to burst your bubble.

Unfortunately, we California girls are not all Bay Watch babes ready to dive into the surf with boogie board in hand. In fact, if you’re counting on me to paddle out on my board and rescue you from a rip tide, you’ve got a serious problem. First off, I don’t even have a surfboard. Second, even if I did, I’d probably make a unique table or wall hanging out of it.

I tried surfing once, when I was a teenager. I lived in Coronado at the time, an isthmus at the southernmost tip of California. With the San Diego Bay on one side of me and the Pacific Ocean on the other, I spent a lot of time at the beach. It was only natural that I at least give surfing a try.

I consider myself fairly adventurous. I often watched the boys out there riding the waves and longed to join them. (FYI, all California boys are blonde, tan, hot and excellent surfers–that part of the myth is true.) The experienced surfers made it look so fun, so wild, so carefree. One hot summer day, I decided to go for it.

Here’s the thing about surfing: It’s not as easy as it looks. On my first attempt, I managed to maneuver the board into the water and paddle out past the breakers. I even managed to turn the board around, start paddling for shore and stand up on the board. From there, however, it went downhill very quickly.

Without so much as a warning, the Pacific Ocean picked the board up, with me on it, and hurled us both forward. I flew off the board and ended up face down on the ocean floor with a mouth full of sand and a nose full of sea water. Needless to say, I didn’t like it one bit.

It’s not that I couldn’t have mastered surfing had I given it the effort. But at that moment, I realized that, before I could be out there riding the waves with grace and dignity, I would first have to taste a lot more mouthfuls of sand. I would have to invest valuable time that could be better spent lying on the beach and reading. And after all, someone has to watch the hot surfer boys. Otherwise, who would they show off for?