Poor fucker..

There was an oldish fella in the water on Saturday. I have to be a bit careful these days when saying oldish, so let’s say late 50’s. Oldish? Any way it was only a couple of foot. The odd bigger one, maybe shoulder high, was sneaking in. It was shifty peaks on a beach which kept the crowd spread out. He was a chatty type. I usually like that, it provides a kind of common solidarity to the line-up and does a good job of dissipating ‘stink-eye‘ and snakers . But I wasn’t feeling it from this chap. My wife often accuses me of ‘cynical and curmudgeonly’ behaviour or just downright rudeness. Sometimes She’ll tell people I don’t suffer fools gladly and in another breath that I’ll talk to anyone. Is any one of these a good thing? I digress.

Dunno what it was, too chirpy? Too needy even? I couldn’t tell but I couldn’t engage with him. By-and-by, one of them sneaky ones snook in. At least a foot bigger than anything that had rolled through previous and he was there, right in the spot for it I was outside of him by a couple of meters and had already conceded it to him when he suddenly pronounces, out loud, ‘Oh I’m too deep for it…‘. He wasn’t.  It was too late for me to do anything but look over my shoulder and watch it peel away down the line rider less. Involuntarily I may have groaned loudly.  ‘I… I did my back in a couple of months ago and I haven’t surfed for a while’ was all he managed. 

Poor fucker. I couldn’t give a shit about his back and I couldn’t care less whether it was his first surf since, my sympathy was entirely for the fact that he knew he should’ve had that wave and that thought would be with him that whole session, probably still is. And that is a truly shitty feeling. Maybe I should’ve said something consoling to him, but our addiction is a selfish one and it probably wouldn’t have made him feel better anyway. He paddled away from me with his lips drawn back breathing through his teeth. Poor fucker.