Greg and I have just returned from a mini-vacation and spent a couple of days surfing the waves.

Actually, Greg surfed while my totally rational fear of sharks prevented me from submerging my toes in more than one inch of water where I was quickly tossed around like a spasmodic ragdoll, losing my bathing suit bottoms not once but twice in front of a rather large audience of beach combers.

I tried to laugh during the spin cycle I found myself in but that only encouraged more water to be swallowed and consequently, I started to choke while being dragged along the sand, shaped like a starfish, wishing death would come before my suit slipped right off my ankles and washed out to sea.

Worse than the sand-burn, the humiliation of being so powerless in ankle deep water, my arms flailing in such an unpredictable and embarrassingly awkward manner, the fact I had giggled at a surfer who had a major wipe-out just feet away moments earlier only to realize he looked like an Olympian compared to the hideous display of uncontrollable limbs I had just exercised, was the sand that found its way so far into my orifices, I have no way of knowing when or if it will ever flush its way through.

People laughed but tried hard not to. Even the birds that resembled tiny seagulls, but with a more sinister sense of humour chuckled as they pecked their way past.

I shook out my bathing suit (what was left of it) before heading home and again after exiting the car.

I took an outdoor shower poolside thinking that would definitely clean up any last grains of sand that seemed to have glued themselves to my now rashy, red skin requiring rosacea ointment to subdue the swelling.

I swam in the pool, a fourth cleansing.

I had a soapy, hot shower, number five.

Three days later, I am still finding sand, shells and an unfathomable number of small, yellow balls that resemble uncooked popcorn kernel skin all over my seriously stretched and sagging bathing suit.

It’s this kind of behaviour, done publically to the detriment of the person trying so hard to just be cool in a new setting that usually brings a smile to my face.

Here’s hoping, next time, the circus clown will not be me.