I always have the coolest adventures at the beach. The beach is where the ocean hawks over and over, and every so often it coughs up a mystery for me to sniff. Sometimes the mysteries are thousands of sand dollars that cover the ground like pug-sized yarmulkes. Sometimes it’s hundreds of jelly fish the size of human food plates. Most of the time there are big trunks of seaweed as big around as Mom’s front legs. But every once in awhile a dead sea monster washes up.
Today when we reached the beach it smelled like a tempting dead thing, but like no dead thing I’d ever smelled before. As we walked across the dry sand toward the throat of the ocean where the sand is easier to run on, we could see an enormous phlegmy blob of mystery. It was as big as my bed that I share with Mom, and covered in a white, slimy sea scum. Both Mom and I came closer to it to check it out. I was trying to decide whether I was more curious or scared, and whether it was safe to sniff when the ocean coughed up a wave that stirred and waggled one end of The Thing. It may have been huge, but it was goopy and it floated. That’s when I decided that it was a Scary Thing and barked at it until I could hide safely behind Mom.
“C’mon, Oscar. Let’s run,” Mom said.
I had no problem running away from that glopy, gelatinous mystery and got a head start down the beach. Before too long, I could smell the delicious smell of rot again. This time there was a Thing that looked like a tree trunk surrounded by a cloud of flies, but smelled like ocean and dead things. I tucked my tail and ran as far away from it as I could without jumping in the ocean.
“If you’re going to tell this story, then we should get a picture of you standing in front of it,” Mom said. “Are you nuts?!” I said. “It might bite me. Do you see how big that thing is? And it smells like a penguin eater. I look a little bit like a penguin. I’m staying right here,” I said, maneuvering to make sure that Mom stayed between me and The Thing, no matter how she moved. “It’s just a dead sea lion,” Mom said. “It can’t hurt you.” “Well if it’s dead, then whatever savage monster killed it is surely hiding underneath it or behind it and waiting to jump out and gobble us up,” I told her. “We’d better keep running.”
After about a mile, I could smell that smell one more time. There was another goopy blob, but this time it had more shape. It kind of looked like Mom’s underpants peeking out over her pants when she squats down to pick up my poo. “Well I guess that answers that question…” Mom said. “What question?” “What died back there.” “I thought you said it was a sea lion.” “No, the first thing.” “Oh, that was a sea monster,” I told her. I can’t believe she didn’t know that. “Just like the one that killed the sea lion.” “Not exactly,” Mom said. “I think it was a whale. This is its tail, and that was a blob of its blubber.” “Its what?” “Blubber. Like its stuffing.” That really scared me. The sea monster must be really huge to rip apart something with enough stuffing to fill a mattress. I looked out at the ocean, which was gagging on huge waves and was glad that I’m not the kind of dog who’s dumb enough to get tricked into swimming.
-Oscar the Land Blubber
37.7195436-122.5028052