Photo by Topato on flickr
Here in Curmudgeon offices, which as regular readers know have been moved to Maui for the summer, we are very familiar with beaches. We often have office parties on the white sand while swimming with the dolphins and enjoying a cold cocktail or two, so we were not surprised that a recent study that concluded: there is bird poop on the beach. Okay. We were moderately surprised, heretofore believing that birds used the toilet just like we do, though that seems silly now. No, what surprised us was that they spent $63,000 dollars on the study.
The joint study conducted by the EPA and University of North Carolina, concluded that “you risk getting an upset stomach and diarrhea if you dig into the granular stuff to fill toy pails, build sand castles or bury yourself. You’re better off walking along the shore or swimming in the surf,” according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Okay. So there’s bird poop. What are the dangers? The report said that beach-goers who dig into sand are about 13 percent more likely to suffer from a stomach ailment than those who don’t and they’re about 20 percent more likely to get diarrhea. Burying yourself in sand is even more risky, those folks being up to 24% more likely to have gastrointestinal illness or diarrhea than those who don’t.
Of particular importance is after playing in the sand, to keep your hands away from food or your mouth or to use a hand sanitizer or wash your hands. So no more burying your lover in the sand, kids. You might put them in your mouth later.
What is going on in this world when a kid can’t even play in the sand at the beach without getting sick anymore? No sand castles? Why, that’s un-American. I guess you’ll have to put a sand box in the back yard now and let the kids build their imaginary worlds of sand there. Just one thing:
Keep your cats out of the sandbox.
The Crusty Curmudgeon 