My husband and I (both 30s) decided it would be fun to take our crotch goblins to the beach for the weekend. All weekend the tide was too high and we had some seriously pissed off kids who desperately wanted to make sandcastles. On the last day of our little trip, we finally got lucky enough to make it before the tide rose. Hooray!

So, we spent 30 minutes unpacking all the crap you have to take to the beach when you have a horde of kids all under 7. Not to mention getting everyone ready to go. Wagon loaded down with buckets, towels, shovels, sunscreen, kid chairs, umbrella, and half of the damn house, we finally made our way to the sand. We had to climb down some stairs to get to the actual beach. Fun with a wagon.

It was obvious the tide was starting to rise but we assumed we’d have at least an hour or 2 to play and stress out about the youngest trying to eat sand. As the kiddos played, we occasionally had to keep backing up our stuff. No big deal. The area where we were was getting smaller but we still had plenty of sand.

All of a sudden, we could hear 2 older ladies yelling. We ignore it for a while. I thought maybe it was a Karen in the wild or something. Until my husband looked up and realized they were yelling at us. They kept screaming how we were going to d!e and we were in extreme danger. What the …? Then we stand and look over and realize that the tide was much higher by the steps than by us. You couldn’t tell unless you stood up and really scanned it.

So, we were slowly becoming stranded on our slowly sinking little island. Great. We put everything up and headed back to the steps. I’m becoming very aware of all the people looking at us and judging us as the dumbasses we clearly were. The water was up to ankle deep at the steps which wouldn’t have been a problem except our 2 oldest kids stepped on some rocks which is very unpleasant with salt water and they screamed.

So, if any pedestrians were unaware of our stupidity before, then they would be very aware now. With the eyes of every nosey person on us, we treaded up the stairs with two screaming kids and one trying to shove a fistful of hidden sand in their mouth.

We desperately rush to the public outdoor showers. And no water. At all. Not a damn drop. Are you freaking kidding me?! We rushed back to the car like a sandy crying parade of crushed beach dreams. I tend to the kids while husband is running around putting our crap back up. They had small scratches on their feet, but were fine thankfully. We gave them each small showers with water bottles and got them as clean as we could.

They then insisted on playing at the playground by the beach. Husband and I, being the gluttons for punishment that we are, agreed. Not wanting our trip to end on a sour note.

They had fun playing on the swings and slide for a while until the bugs from hell came: sand gnats. They swarmed everywhere, biting everyone. We rush back to the car, but the sand gnats were in the car now too! Little bastards! We jumped in and peeled out of there. Had to leave the windows open while we swatted to keep the bug vampires out.

It was at this time, our oldest started crying because it smelled so bad in the back seat. Yep, youngest had an explosive diaper. We changed youngest , but had nowhere to put the diaper, except back in the car.

So, we drove home with sandy cracks, scratched up feet, bug bites, and a car that smelled like pure crap.

I’m hoping one day we can laugh about this.

TLDR: we went to the beach and made a series of bad choices.

Edit: Yes, we did look at an online tide chart. We checked before we went because we wanted to be sure we’d get beach time. The other times we weren’t able to make it in time. It was supposed to be low tide for another few hours. However, we forgot to factor in that at this particular beach, it’s lower (hence the stairs) than most beaches we go to. Which is another way TIFU.

Edit 2: Guys, I exaggerated a bit with how much stuff we brought. It felt like that much though. Lol. We did have a wagon and did use it to carry our beach stuff in it, but we also used it to pull youngest kiddo. We didn’t really bring “half the damn house”. I didn’t think anyone would take that part seriously. We definitely brought too much though. However, when you’re the leader of a small human army, you have to be prepared. Lol.