By all accounts, Perth man Ben is a talented young man. He excelled academically, maintained a healthy level of social sport post school and has fostered many rich friendships. Alas, it all counts for nothing due to one fatal flaw in his genetic make-up.
A flaw he reflects on as he stands on the sand overlooking a very blowy City Beach before rubbing his temples in a desperate attempt to calm down, “why am I like this?” He ponders as he deals with the realisation he’s absolutely cooked another attempt to enjoy a day at the beach.
Once more, Ben has thrown himself to the winds of fate and decided against checking the wind conditions before embarking on the 20-minute drive to his favourite beach. Once again, he got it wrong. He told The Bell Tower Times,
“If I’m being honest with myself, I really don’t understand wind data. My mate has given me a website to check, willy something but for the life of me I can never remember to do it. Even if I did remember I wouldn’t understand any of the pointy arrow bullshit”
Ben takes a deep sigh. Acknowledging the basics of interpreting wind conditions has defeated him in the royal rumble of basic life skills.
We suggested that perhaps making the mental commitment to learning how to read wind conditions via a few articles or YouTube videos would be an exponentially better situation than his current hit & hope model of beach condition analysis. He replied,
“Yeah probably, do you know how many times I’ve driven all the way to the beach and then stubbornly lay there having sand whipped in my face for 15 minutes as I pretend to be enjoying myself?”
He grew more agitated as he reflected on the sharp sand brutally hitting him in the face and all his shit blowing all over the beach. He continued,
“People always tell me that there are babes down at the beach? I’ve never seen em. It’s always just me and the god damn kite surfers down there. I think they look at me like I’m some kind of weather illiterate moron”
Luckily for Ben, he’s not alone. He’s part of a flourishing community of weather illiterates who make an appointment to see the Freo Doctor only to get a prescription of sub-par beach conditions.
Our thoughts go out to every one of Ben’s friends who have tried to help him to solve this Rubik’s Cube of basic data interpretation. It can’t be easy to direct a grown man to a simple website.
Documenting the Human Zoo is thirsty work, so if you enjoyed what you read how about buying Belle a beer, ay?