There is no way to hide the awkwardness of eating a footlong, frozen, chocolate covered banana. Man, woman or child. This beast wasn’t designed for public consumption, and yet you walk the shoreline during the summer months and there they are, firmly in the grasp of the great unwashed as they trudge toward the surf pondering their decision to consume the eighteen-pack of Coors Light they had prior to the banana. Fingers covered in melted drippings, nervous nicotine stubs. Just remember, the camera adds a hundred pounds. This place, at this particular time of year, summer going into fall, becomes the home of the misfits. Car-dwellers, pizza-eaters and those who sleep in the laundromat. Cops nervous from inactivity cruise looking for anything they can stir into something terrible. Traveling in packs, noses to the ground, hunting rule breakers in the most boring place in the world. The sea is our salvation from ourselves. Stand and look at the water. Unchanged. Relentless. Turn east and the blight of mankind is impossible to ignore. Want to save the ocean? Gotta save yourself first.