I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. And for as far back as I can remember, every Sunday during the summertime, we used to meet my maternal grandparents at the beach at Coney Island. Yes, THE Coney Island!
In 20/20 hindsight as an occupational therapist, I’m pretty sure I had some (undiagnosed) tactile defensiveness going on as a very young child; we have home movies of my dad teaching me how to wipe my hands off by myself when I was probably about 2, because heaven forbid I had a grain of sand stuck to my fingers LOL! I also apparently had a love/hate relationship with my dad holding me and my knocking down sand castles with my feet…we have a video of me knocking the castle down and then pulling my feet up because “Ewwww…sand on my feet!” (to this day, I’m not thrilled with the sensation of almost anything on my feet LOL. Sand on my feet is still an unpleasant sensation, socks have to be “just so” and the thought of wearing flip flops – something between my toes?!?!?! – are just icky to me).
On top of that, I remember the “beach blanket” (it was a flat sheet) my parents and grandparents used at the beach. We’d put it on the ground to “claim our space,” but a flat sheet was no match for sand getting all over everything, including our food. Then, at the end of the day, they’d have to get all the sand off the sheet. They’d shake the sheet, then shake it some more so as little sand as possible would wind up in the washing machine when it got washed.
Sand no more!
So when I read about a woman who had a hack to avoid sand at the beach, I was all over it.
UK resident Casey Major-Bunce has 4 kids, ages 13, 8 and 4-year-old twins. She grew up and continues to live in Portsmouth, a coastal city in southern England that has several beaches for locals and tourists to choose from.
Major-Bunce said that when she was little, her younger brother hated sand (he must’ve been my brother from another mother, LOL). So her mother figured out how to use a fitted sheet at the beach, complete with a container of water in one corner of the sheet, and a towel next to it, so the kids could dip their feet to get all the sand off, and then dry them off on the towel, before stepping on the sheet (she used other items to keep the other 4 corners of the fitted sheet up).
Ingenious!
Here’s a video of how she sets it all up:
She has her fitted sheet set up with separate “stations,” such as for suntan lotion and the like. I don’t care about the “stations” so much as using a fitted sheet to keep the sand away!
Y’all, I would have LOVED this as a kid!
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