I’m going to the beach next week and it will be glorious. Let’s face it, though: a mere weekend by the sea is never enough. Every time we visit, I find myself wondering what my beach town occupation (or preoccupation) would be if I ever followed my heart’s desire and moved there for keeps. Here are but a few roles I believe I could, with some training, be ready to step into:
Sand Dune Treasure Hunter
Apprentice Taffy Puller
First Mate on a Crabbing Boat
Owner/Sole Employee of the Gently Used Paperback Shop
Local Artist Working Mainly in Seashells and Epoxy
Nosy Librarian With a Penchant for Solving Crimes
Campsite Manager Whose Dark and Mysterious Past We Never, Ever Speak Of
Lighthouse Tour Guide Who Just Makes Everything Up
Radio DJ Overly Attached to Playing “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” on the Fifteens
Kind-Hearted Proprietress of The Sand Dollar B&B Who Lets Teens Grow Marijuana in Her Backyard
Token Asian
Freelance Wind Chime Artisan
Gassy Lactose-Intolerant Ice Cream Scooper
The HEART and SOUL of the Sea Shanty Society
Editor of the Local News Weekly Obsessed with Exposing Schemes of the Handsome But Shady Land Developer from the Big City
Folk Songwriter Who Just Works on That Same Song All Summer Long
Unpaid Intern/Refreshments Coordinator at the Village Playhouse
Swim Teacher to Neurotic Dogs That Are Afraid of Water
Slightly-Too-Friendly Vacation Home Realtor
Jaded Writer on Her Twelfth Novel Rewrite Mistrusted By All the Townies
Eccentric Who is Morally Opposed to Hunting But Has Always Wanted to Try Painting Duck Decoys For Some Reason
Barista Who Gives Rude Customers the Wrong Times for High and Low Tide
Anything Really, As Long As I Am Locally Notorious and Can Eat Breakfast at the Really Good Diner Every Day
(I also asked my daughter what her beach job would be, and she said “sell seashells and drawings of people.”)
What do you think you’d do if you lived at the beach?
I do live at the beach and I work in a law office, so *shrug*
(that isn’t to say that I don’t know literally all the people referenced above)
(our notorious author was Jim Harrison)
You’re so LUCKY.
If I moved right now, my job would just be “Locally Unpopular Blogger,” but I’m open to change.
RIP, Jim!
Attractive Young Lifeguard Ready To Teach You Valuable Lessons About Life And Love And Maybe Save You From Drowning While You Overcome Your Childhood Fears.
Or really any other YA beach lit tropes.
I live 15 minutes walk from the beach, and my metier is sole person there whenever the wind gets over 50mph, sitting on a groyne watching big waves and feeling the Power of Nature ™ and taking photos of windswept seagulls.
Ah, sea breezes. The town council in my hometown has the motto “E Ventis Vires” (From the wind, strength”), and it is so wonderfully windy there. I find wind everywhere else a bit lacking in comparison. (It does mean that seafront walks can be painful, though, as cold air is blasted straight into your ear.)
I have to wear sunglasses to avoid my eyes being sandblasted!
We are pebbles only, so no chance of that. (During very intense winter storms two years ago, I went down there to catsit and found that the entirety of the shingle had been washed/blown off the beach and onto the road, leaving a ~half a metre drop from the concrete path at the edge of the beach to the sand that had been underneath. As the shingle is an artificial flood defence measure, this was alarming.)
These winter storms, you mean?! (click on the pic and it takes you to the video page)
This is the only acceptable kind of weather.
Looks about right!
Ooh, now I know where you live 🙂 Well, it sure doesn’t look that way in Summer 😉
My two roommates both grew up on Cape Cod, and my boyfriend on an island on the west coast. I’m from Wisconsin, and am both fascinated and terrified by their relationships with the big scary water bits.
Here are my potential waterfront jobs:
– Grizzled mussel harvester with equally grizzled aluminum boat & dubiously stained crowbar
– Painter who really just wants to paint Lynchian still lives, but needs to paint sailboats and ocean landscapes to pay the studio rent
– Sunscreen chemist
Oooh! Fudge shop proprietor who watches the boardwalk through my window and tells the lady detective about all unusual behavior.
I’ll be the lady detective who buys all your fudge.
Oooooo! I will be your sole employee with whom you exchange knowing glances before answering questions from the detective. I won’t answer the questions myself, but I’ll stand next to you nodding and sometimes repeating the last word of your sentence. I will also settle for being the employee you send to the stock room so as not to hear your conversations with the detective.
You’re hired! Knowing glances are essential.
Yay! You won’t regret this. My glancing skills are top notch.
I would be the one who takes care of all the cats in town. Every morning, as the kitties congregate at the wharf, I would be there, checking up on them to make sure that none are hurt or missing. I would know them all by name. If any resident discovers a kitty in need, they would bring said kitty to me, and I would patiently nurse it back to health.
Ahh, so Waterfront Bubbles. A fine choice.
Fuckin’ right! Hopefully my abode would be a bit nicer than a shed.
Token Female Surf Shop Employee
Owner Of Bicycle Rental Kiosk
I ALSO think I’d be a decent fake boardwalk clairvoyant, but I’d never move to a beach town with a boardwalk, as they are against my religion.
This is a solid basis for dogma.
Boardwalks attract noise, litter, and more people to your beach, which are three of the very last things you want there!
I dunno. There’s a tiny beach town in Central California with a boardwalk, and all that boardwalk attracts are ground squirrels in search of handouts.
And people interested in tidepools, but those sorts of people are okay.
Boardwalk Clairvoyant. I know what I am doing when I retire.
I beg to differ: my abuelo lives in a beach town with a boardwalk, and i love it, mostly for the food. They’ll deep fry everything and you can walk around in public drinking beer. Its like a state fair on the beach every weekend!
Oof. My family’s been going to the same awesome and LGBT-haven beachtown for 40 years and they have a gorgeous boardwalk and this hurts my soul.
Rehoboth Beach??
Yes!!
That place is the best and the boardwalk IS beautiful! And Dogfishhead Brewery to boot!
A boardwalk is just a way to walk over hot sand more easily! To get to the ocean! There are lots of boardwalks with no shops on them. #notallboardwalks
Definitely run the boat rental shop- kayaks, sail boats, little row boats, not motor boats. It is my one true calling in this life.
That, or work at the sandwich shop, which is less my true calling but still something I could do. I’ve seen Ten Inch Hero and have also been to a Subway before. Plus, hating sandwiches myself, I would never sample the product and get hooked and have some sort of downward sandwich spiral.
thank you for giving me an idea of what to do on salt spring island if my “be an artist/farmer” plan doesn’t pan out.
edit: the boat thing, i mean, not the sandwich thing. I like boats. Well, I guess sandwiches are ok, but I don’t want to make them all day.
How can you hate sandwiches? They’re so diverse. That’s like saying you hate “snacks.”
It’s a texture thing. I’m really sensitive to textures, and almost all sandwiches mix them in a way that I can’t deal with.
I’m just glad I’m not the only one who saw Ten Inch Hero and immediately wanted to quit my so-called ‘career’ and go be an adorable 20 something biking to work at my beach side sandwich shop owned by an aging hippie and crewed by a lovable band of misfits one of whom is actually Jensen Ackles in eyeliner and a kilt and also girly trips in the hippy van.
Are they taking applications for Obscure Local Pirate Ghost Stories Tour Guide and Reenactor?
Lady Who Wanders The Beach At Dawn Waiting For Bruce Springsteen Appear, Waiting, Waiting
(this is based on the fact my friend grew up on the nj shore and her mom ran into Bruce Springsteen on a dawn run once)
I grew up in the Land of Springsteen and can assure you that such tales are true. He is also known to appear in donut shops and buy treats for all.
Patent attorney specialising in Holiday Inventions? Bring me your improved ice cream machines, enhanced beach umbrellas, etc. and I can help you protect your idea.
Can I be your law partner/associate/apprentice? I just passed the patent bar, I have experience in personal bankruptcy and a smidgen of no-contest divorce, and I have a high tolerance for listening to grizzled elders explain their legal problems while digressing about their grandchildren, the weekenders who leave crap on the beach, and their future doctor visits.
That being said, if they do not bring in the supporting documents that I’ve already asked for twice I have no problem withdrawing from their representation.
The book store one.
Yep, definitely.
Pigheaded Spinster who dabbles in watercolors and hires the kid from the wrong side of the tracks to help her in her garden. One day the kid starts doing some dabbling of hir own and the spinster realizes the kid’s really talented and she mentors hir all the way to some mythical version of artistic success where one earns enough to live.
I’d wear blue flowered cotton dresses and give one nice garden party every summer as my concession to social niceties.
As a pre-existing fictional character, I already have my seaside occupation determined – teen detective turned lighthouse keeper/mad scientist! It’s nice to have one less thing to worry about.
A lighthouse does seem to be a decent mad laboratory setting.
For many years my “retirement plan” involved operating a used book store at the beach. Lately, the beach has been moved to a country outside the US and the book store has become a school (or perhaps just a spare room in my house) for teaching English.
Wind-Burned Journalist Who Writes About Serious but Very, Very Local Environmental and Economic Matters and Calls All the Guys at the Docks by Their Last Names
This character is real and is basically my grandfather, who spent his retirement writing passionate letters about oyster reef ecology to the Island Packet.
A hero!
I’d like to think I would be the enthusiastic lady who organizes beach cleanups and leads early morning nature walks but I’m much more likely be the grump who parks herself next to shorebird nesting habitat and yells at tourists when they get too close.
You have literally described my weekends.
Segway Tour Guide, because yes this is a thing!
Ah yes, I’ve seen those around. The willpower I have to summon up to resist gleefully chasing them like a flock of geese…
The phases of seeing the Segway tour coming near you:
1. “Oh goddddd”
2. “Wait, they look really happy…”
3. “[Waves hello] Why am I waving hello to strangers?”
4. “I want a Segway!”
My aunt literally does this at the seaside (in nz)
Old Money Heiress Living In A Decaying Beach Mansion I Can’t Afford To Renovate Because Daddy Squandered The Money And I Dislike Using My Prep School Connections To Get A Fancy Job So I Live On My Dwindling Trust Fund And Call The Cops On Small Shouting Children.
That turned out to be longer than I thought. Strangely specific and partially inspired by Grey Gardens.
It’s a mean, nasty Republican town.
No, no, no! Be an heiress living in a house which you’ve papered with money. Leave the house only at night to ride your Irish Mail, and befriend random people and help them with their problems!
(Required: a feline sidekick named Silently.)
Fuckin A, man.
Running the “tea room” that ladies like my grandmother and aunts like to go to, having an absolute rule that anyone who calls cream tea high tea is banned for life (after gentle correction the first few times, I mean, we’re not British here, not everyone knows these things).
Back of the tea room is a punk record store/performance space, we have weekly all-ages shows in the summer.
(Nothing about this requires a beach, just reminds me of the Lake Erie beach town where we vacationed when I was a kid.)
Which one? I am at the far eastern end of Lake Erie.
Lakeside, Ohio – almost all the way at the western end!
having an absolute rule that anyone who calls cream tea high tea is banned for life
You are a good person.
Running a tea room was such a huge childhood ambition of mine! Can I come work for you? I make pretty fine fruitcakes, both Dundee and Porter, and I’m aces at overcoming my disinclination to interact with people in the name of Really Nice Customer Service. I also love experimenting with seasonal desserts, if that sort of thing is allowed in a tea room.
yeah you definitely can, I have no idea what I’m doing
Well, you seem to know the proper composition of a cream tea and I really really don’t – in the interest of full disclosure I’ll admit I’ve never clotted a single spoonful of cream either. I’ll learn how though, I am committed to the seaside tea room if you’ll have me!
My husband makes clotted cream, one of the things I keep him around for. So it sounds like maybe we have everything we need except business acumen.
On that note, maybe we can sometimes unexpectedly close up shop for the afternoon when we don’t feel like interacting with people anymore, and just sit around eating the fruitcakes ourselves.
Based on that idea I’m going to go ahead and proclaim your business acumen absolutely perfect 🙂
(what is cream tea please?)
A pot of tea. Scones (preferably homemade). Jam (preferably homemade). Cream (clotted).
Cue heated argument between Devon dwellers and Cornwall folk about whether the cream or jam goes on the scone first.
Jam all the way, this is a point of principle.
Awww…my mom is from a tiny Lake Erie beach town in Ohio…smack dab in the middle. There is not a tea room, just tiny beach cottages and Italians. And living near a bigger town without a beach, but with an amusement park.
…Huron? Vermilion? Trying to think of where there are more Italians. I’m from around there too, but farther south, so tiny farm town instead of beach town 🙂
Huron!
Where’s your tiny farm town? My dad’s side is from a tiny farm town further south, too. My parents moved far, far away very quickly, but I was there a lot in the summer.
Ha, small world! Mom’s side from Norwalk (where I grew up), dad’s side from Plymouth.
Norwalk! I have driven through many a time. My dad’s family is from around the Mansfield area, so Mansfield to Huron is a classic trip for me.
North-central Ohio is an especially tiny world, and I love it.
I mean, you’d THINK that “Managing Editor of a website for queer librarians” would be a beach town job, but we live in a Fallen world.
As for me, Lighthouse Keeper all the way. Seems like a great job: all you have to do is turn on a giant light every night and otherwise just maintain an air of salty wisdom.
Sometimes you have to get into spats with uppity Destroyer Captains over who should give way, although I am told that is sadly an urban legend (BEACH legend?).
I can’t BELIEVE I forgot the one about a fudge shop. With a minimum of twelve varieties.
Also chocolate-covered bacon.
These would all also be very good twitter bios.
Lady who takes all her scraps and tosses them to the seagulls until there is a wall of seagulls flying in front of her and never does a scrap touch the sand. (I used to do this at Lake Huron as a kid.)
Did you know there are some beaches where the seagulls do NOT understand the deep, binding contract between seagull and human that states that if humans are throwing bread, the seagulls must fly and perform impressive midair acrobatics to catch the bread? On some beaches, they just *stand there* and wait for the bread to fall, and it’s very disheartening.
(My family feeds seagulls religiously)
It all depends on the wind, right? You need a pretty strong wind for a proper seagull wall.
Oh, no. Why would you feed the seagulls? WHY?
(I am very anti-feeding, obvs. To quote “Finding Nemo,” they are rats with wings.)
I am from a seaside town, and the number of local news stories about the everpresent menace of seagulls was pretty high.
I lived in several beach towns as a child and can confirm that all of these types exist.
Local hippie spinster who has a tea to cure everything.
Curiously, they all smell of ganja (it’s not that curious, actually).
(insert thumbs-up emoji)
Wait OR I’d just be Miss Rumphius, growing my lupines, being a kindly spinster.
Miss Rumphius forever and ever.
Once I lived at the beach in Hawaii, and my job was College Girl Who Drives Celebrities and VIPs to Their Hotels
and also
Person Who Searches All of Oahu’s Lost and Founds For Celebrities’ Bratty Children’s Lost Objects
Sadly these jobs were minimum wage or I would have been temped to stay
That Lady Who Lives Outside of Town in That Weird House With the Solar Panels
It’s Stars Hollow! Or Stars-Hollow-sur-Mer, at any rate.
It’s Paradise from Bunheads! Who’s going to be the dance instructor??
Me, me, me! (But it will have to be belly dance.)
Local Coffee and Bookshop Owner Who Insists On Petting Everyone’s Dog Despite Owning Two Of Her Own.
A++ Can I barista for you? With a side-line in pet/housesitting for wealthy vacation home owners
Oh! And you can’t forget – it’s very important – that you also give away free dog treats to every customer’s dog. You will not, however, call them dog treats; you will call them cookies, and so will they. This confuses the tourists who actually wish to order cookies, but b/c you’re a very generous soul and also know all the locals (and their dogs) by sight, you give them real cookies anyhow
I would happily be a Yarn Store owner, because there’s nothing that people like to do more at the beach than to knit in the sand…? I’m flexible though, I’m also open to selling Local Art Made of Seashells and Other Found Objects or Books and Maps of any Provenance.
Husband would be great at being a park guide or something, talking to people about birds and geology and whatnot, but he loves deserts, not beaches. 🙁 Framing beaches as “thin deserts next to the water” has not been very persuasive to date.
Now legit thinking about how there’s probably an unexplored niche in the “ethnic groceries by the beach” market. The downside is that such a position is probably ripe for microaggression-laden conversations.
Let’s you and me go in together, I was planning to be the Quilt Shop Owner. We can buy an old house and fix it up so half of it is yarn and half is fabric.
I’ll be the plucky assistant who helps out in both sides of the old house and feeds stray cats at the back door.
I’ll be your most truest customer, and help organize knitting and spinning nights.
Oh man, all the good jobs are being taken! I can’t be the lady detective or the cat lady or the quilt shop lady. Can I have a dollhouse shop next door, and do the gardening in front of our shops?
I’ll even throw in a dollhouse that is a replica of your fixed up old house turned into a yarn and quilt shop.
Also I’ll do model ships and model lighthouses with real lights, obviously.
My city by the sea (Long Beach!) has a yarn store and it baffles me.
Speaking as a knitter, knitting is a relaxing thing to do, and so is visiting the beach. There’s also travel time to and from said beach! I have been the knitter who realized with horror that she got to the coast and didn’t have knitting, and was grateful for a local yarn store. But the Oregon coast is almost always chilly and damp, so it lends itself to knitting.
I mean. My ideal life is basically living in a house with a huge glassed-in porch facing the ocean where I can sit to read and knit and faff about online.
Ideally ideally, the house from Practical Magic.
Proprietor of the local crafts shop (mostly knitting/crochet and needlework, but with a healthy selection of painting, drawing, other fiber crafts, models, etc). Buy me a fresh croissant from the bakery and I’ll teach you to knit. Also the local dog-walker. EDIT: Also also owns chickens, though that’s less a “beach goal” and more a “life goal”.
Please hire me for resident glass artisan. I would spend my days hunting for crabs, sand dollars, and poisonous insects for pay-the-bills paperweights, but sea glass would be my dearer muse.
Wildlife Police. Pressed khaki shorts and a vehicle suitable for rescuing injured pelicans. Please do not molest the sea turtles while they are laying their eggs. Remember to shuffle your feet in shallow water to deter stingrays, kids. Yes, ma’am, the skimmer rookery is located at the south end of the island. Keep an eye out for a Northern gannet, very unusual for this area, it was blown in by a storm last month and seems to have settled in.
This seems like just the type of down-to-earth person an outsider would fall for, struggle to identify if this is a Real Thing or a Summer Thing, and then ultimately decide to move to said town and start a family with. I approve.
Is the position of Beach Ice Cream Vendor filled? I, too, can gather valuable clues for the Lady Detective.
Creator of sea glass art. Occasionally dipping into driftwood art but my heart would not really be there.
Coral Jewelry Maker
Power-Hungry Deputy Director of the Coastal Conservancy Group
All-Knowing Town Agony Aunt
Pro-wind-farm board member who keeps pulling out the projected sea rise charts during meetings.
Based on living in a Florida beach town throughout high school (only 3 blocks from the ocean, then we moved inland again, but still only a 10 minute drive), I suspect that there are different Beach Town Habitats because this is definitely not the beach town of condos and drunk rich people that I know, and I’m a little bit envious of your town.
This is definitely a small beach town in either Maine or Massachusetts. Probably York or Ogunquit.
Winsome whale biologist who works in an all-female lab and wanders the docks pestering fishermen to participate in scientific programs.
(I live in a beach town and this is my real job)
Are you living the dream bc it sure sounds like you are!!
Apart from the constant low-level anxiety of working on soft money in an underfunded area of research, I am!
I think we can all agree that you are living the best life.
Nothing specific, mind. Just… random scientific programs.
“Oh god, here she comes again. Try not to make eye contact…”
“YOU THERE! FISHERMEN! PARTICIPATE IN SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS!”
DREAM LIFE!!!
Do you specialize in a specific species?
I worked on the Ocean City, NJ boardwalk for five summers, four of them at a bookstore. The fifth (my first) was at an.overpriced tsotchkes shop with a middle-aged male manager who tried very, very hard to prove he was smarter than me, a 14-year-old girl working for $5.50 an hour. He did not succeed.
My experience working for tourists has made me terrified of ever being a tourist, or visiting anywhere during tourist season. I only visit the beach during October now.
I’m sure I’ve been to both of the stores referenced. I sadly consider myself a shoobie (though my parents now live in Downbeach), and I’m horrified at the actions of my fellow shoobie tourists in the summer! I vastly prefer the off-season, even though I miss out on a lot of boardwalk attractions.
The Jersey Shore is lovely in late September/October. The water is warm, the skies are clear, and the damn shoobies are gone so prices are normal.
I grew up minutes from the beach and really never took advantage of it growing up. Now I live in Massachusetts, like, forty-fifty minutes away from the ocean and it feels like an eternity. My friend said, “there’s a lake close to your house with a beach!” and I just laughed sadly.
I grew up on the coast (in what is generally referred to as a “decaying seaside town”) and both my brother and sister worked in (separate) fish and chip shops in our teens. (So did several of our cousins.) No seaside town is complete without fish and chips. Downside: your hair and clothes will stink of grease after every shift.
I worked at a burger joint-slash-ice cream shop at the beach during the summers in college, and after a certain point, no matter how many times they were washed, all of my clothes smelled like cheese. Not grease, not burgers, not chocolate syrup–cheese.
Since many better jobs are spoken for, I will settle for town slut/employee of beachwear store.
Judging by the likes it’s amazing how many of us just Know those two jobs are always the same person
I have seriously put a lot of thought into this in the past. The position requires either early morning or evening hours so prime daytime beach hours are open. I’ve narrowed it down to the following: 1) Owner/operator of the small bakery that sells limited numbers of delicious baked goods but closes at 11 a.m. and is sometimes closed for random full days; 2) Bartender with a shady past who refuses to make frozen drinks; or 3) Manager of B&B who makes an amazing breakfast until about 10 a.m. but won’t let anyone check in until after 5 p.m.
Is your antipathy towards frozen drinks connected to your shady past or..?
I think I could do really well as Preschool Teacher Who Believes Every Day Is a Great Day For a Field Trip or something along those lines. You know, the one who never wears real shoes or anything that isn’t able to blow gracefully in the wind, and the world is our classroom.
Taking little children to tide pools is ALWAYS a great way to spend the day.
My parents took us to the local rock pools all the time when I was little, and it was great. You got to climb on rocks and find crabs!
TRUE STORY: My hs had a science substitute teacher like this, who was filling in for … maybe materinity leave? Anyway, for a FULL SEMESTER he walked a bunch of teens to the beach and talked about liiiiiiiife maaaaan and when the Principle found out all the kids in the class had to take the class over again in the summer bc OBVIOUSLY.
PS If anyone is now really feeling this beach town aesthetic and wants to experience it through YA lit about female friendship/coming of age/feminist awakening, I highly recommend the graphic novel “This One Summer,” by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki.
that’s a good one! I would also suggest “We were liars” by E. Lockhart, set on a private island!
Slightly prickly and sarcastic, but otherwise good-natured, used bookstore owner (sorry, Nicole, but we can be friendly rivals!), with an excellent ability to recommend the perfect beach read. My fiancee runs the local historic house museum, which never has trouble finding funding and has an excellent public programs schedule. Our cat serves as both Adorable Museum Mascot and Imperious Bookstore Kitty, depending on her mood.
In the off-season, we go on lovely adventures and come back with thrilling stories of faraway lands.
I will run the SCUBA dive shop and spend my evenings at the local bar making entirely too many dumb jokes at the intersection of dated pop culture and local fish ecology. Loudly telling the story of my undersea duet of “Bye Bye Bye” with my good pal Lance Seabass to anyone who makes the mistake of making eye contact, for instance. Otherwise, I will speak entirely in quotes from Finding Nemo and/or The Abyss.
LANCE SEABASS!
Person at the Fudge Shop Who Pours the Molten Fudge Mixture On Slabs of Marble and Slowly Cools it By Paddling It Over Itself Over And Over for Hours Until It Is A 6-Foot Long Block of Fudge To Be Cut Into Quarter-Pound Pieces And Sold to Tourists.
I have found a video. I am soothed forever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCOkIWIvcmU
Mmm, fudge….
I’ll come and watch you pour it. And also buy and eat a lot of fudge.
Aggressively permed octogenarian cat lady who is weirdly intense about sea life.
(My actual retirement plan is to buy a big house by the beach, fill it with cats and all my single/ widowed lady friends. Activities will include: growing only the finest of pot to support the house & keep the cats in kibble; power walking at the mall in the winter; cat calling hot young men; and spoiling nieces, nephews, and grandchildren). I shall keep a boat called the USS Feminist Killjoy until I turn 99 or break my hip, whichever comes first, and use it to deliver bread and sardines to the whales.
Ok, I’m making friends with you now so I can be one of your single lady friends. I’m allergic to cats but working on that, I’ve had cats all my life and watch Tiny Kittens aggressively, and I feel like I’m learning all about the car of stray cats from Shelly. I’m also an excellent mall walker.
Honey! Do this in St Augustine & we can be neighbors!
Wait, who is the resident Old Man Combing the Sands with a Metal Detector?
As for me, I’d like to just be Woman Wearing a Large Hat and Flowing Clothes Who Gazes Upon the Sea and Sometimes Collects Seashells.
That would be my dad. He owns BOOKS about metal detecting techniques.
Wait, no, that’s MY dad. He is a member of the local treasure hunting club. He even invented a new kind of metal detector.
Maybe our dads need to be friends.
Maybe they can be in the beach issue of Dad Magazine!
Man who walks down the beach with a parrot or a python perched on his shoulders and takes selfies with teenagers.
Old woman who knows where to find the crabs and the clams and the mulberries and ramp and all the other wild edibles.
Guy always seen with a djembe and a yerba mate gourd.
Elegant and charming mistress of darkly brooding ferryboat captain.
Person Who Writes Passionate Op Eds to the Local Newspaper About How Building More Local Golf Courses Will Endanger Various Species of Sea Bird and Also Make Satan Happy
Scientist From That One Weird Lab Up On a Cliff That’s Doing Something Strange With Lightning
Apologies if my lab causes a freak weather disaster that everyone must band together to prevent, but I promise to be the whistleblowing scientist on the inside who helps to save the day?
Marine Biologist, Mysteriously No Longer Employed by the Aquarium 45 Minutes Up the Coast, Who Spends All Her Time Teaching Schoolchildren About the Tidepools
Blondish woman in blue paisley dress who makes elegant sterling silver jewelry off which the sun glints rakishly. Her husband is a hedge fund manager who rarely is able to get to the beach town. She’s okay with that.
Freckled, Sun-Hatted Shaved Ice Peddler! There are two flavors, “lemonade” and “strawberry,” and I vend them from a cart hitched to my bicycle.
Extremely part-time mayor who holds office hours alternately at the diner and the bar. Would-be shady developers are allowed to buy me several drinks from the surly bartender before being run out of town by citizens more plucky than myself, but I’ll never actually sign anything incriminating. (ETA: If I can be this semi-beloved drunk of a mayor, I will take on one of the more non-quirky but necessary jobs as my full-time gig. Like running the laundromat or gas station.)
Alternately, chef who left shady past behind in the big city and is trying to make upscale dining a Thing in the beach town. It’s not exactly successful, but I will warm the heart of that salty old lighthouse keeper who just wants to be left alone and holds no truck with “that a-ruggle-a business,” one brown-butter-and-sage-crusted-tilapia filet at a time.
Not tilapia, if you want to warm hearts in a beach town. You’ll have better luck with salmon, or tuna, or halibut.
Local historian who is way to into washed-up crab pot floats and the story of Ol’ Ezra Scandarius Johnson.
Artistic Director of the community theater, producing Groundbreaking New Work and also (sigh) classic musicals for the tourists.
Not that I’ve fantasized about this for years or have a draft of a business plan or anything.
You need a volunteer to rip tickets at the door and show people to their seats. I’m your gal. During the day I’m going to be the one taking long walks along the boardwalk with a really floppy hat that covers everything and some very frumpy clothing.
I’ll be the mediocre actress in mid sized roles! And I can help with the sets too.
Somewhat Out of Shape Tennis Instructor Who Spends Most of Her Time Chasing the Ice Cream Truck and/or Dogs Who Have Stolen her Tennis Balls.
Wallace Stevens.
I’ll just stay my current self, but wearing lots of flowy linen clothes and with really excellent salt-sprayed hair. Surely the beach, with all its trysts and mistresses (judging by everyone else’s volunteer job descriptions), needs a good gynecologist. (Insert crabs joke here; I’m obv far too classy to make one, myself.)
Considering your main competition is the cranky big city surgeon who went into general practice after Traumatic Events, I think you’ll do well.
They’ll butt heads at first, but eventually band together to save the daughter of the town eccentric from an ectopic pregnancy! And then … true love??.
True love can only follow after 3.4 years of vicious banter (pick one: Benedick/Beatrice or Sam/Diane), then all it will take is a single early-dawn tryst (cranky surgeon will want to make out on the actual beach, I will remind cranky surgeon of the gynecological consequences of SAND)…..
Isn’t that how we make pearls?
If human vaginas were capable of pearlizing sand, you can bet that would be the most Toast-appropriate jewelry/souvenir of all time.
I do not, however, personally volunteer to make any pearls.
Which will only turn him on more and then cranky surgeon will stop your mouth with a kiss (a la Benedick/Beatrice, OBVIOUSLY, as they are superior in every way), and then you will help cranky surgeon recover from Traumatic Events and they will make you realize that you don’t have to be independent and alone?
(Edited to make gender neutral because men don’t have a monopoly on cranky surgeon with Traumatic Events in their past.)
I’ll be the Overly Eager Junior Doctor Working Under The Cranky Surgeon.
I signed up because I had heard of his reputation and was convinced he could teach me great things. He’ll send me out on house calls but I always end up having to call him anyway because the problem is always something only a top tier surgeon could handle.
He will hate me at first but begrudgingly become a father figure to me
I think if you inexplicably make occasional house calls even though it is 2016, you’ll have a loyal core of patients who would not even consider the bigger clinic practice across town.
I pledge to make ONLY house calls. I don’t want to pay exorbitant beachfront property rents for an office!
And you won’t take insurance, right? Only payment in good deeds and quaint beachside trinkets.
Like all Charming Beach Town residents (except for the proprietresses of the bookstore, the newsstand, the shaved ice cart, etc) I will never be seen handling or discussing money. I will just live by the beach and practice OB/Gyn and how I manage to stay well-outfitted in flowy linen clothes and well-fed with satisfying, nutritious vegetarian food – will just have to remain a mystery. (Perhaps one that the bespectacled Librarian can solve?)
Maintenance tech for the town’s fleet of souvenir penny press machines.
why didn’t I think of that?????
Not JUST the maintenance tech though! The One Person In Town Who Hears Everything, But No One Ever Asks You, But You’re Just Dying To Tell All Those Dirty Secrets To That Pretty, Plucky Lady Detective/Librarian (or) The Scruffily Handsome Dogged Local Sheriff, If They Ever Asked You, Or You Ever Got The Courage To Talk To (a romance/detective novel plot, probably)
Having grown up 5 blocks from the beach, and having inadvertently become a neighborhood caracter, I’d like to submit my application for: woman constantly walking dog in the surf.
Tipsy Sea-Themed Book Club Host
Haunted Putt-Putt-Golf Course Owner
Special Advisor to the Part-Time City Councilwoman
Vice-Chair of the Diversity Outreach Committee (the actual Chair would be a white lady)
All these min-golf ones make me believe you should re-think your stance on boardwalks, Nikki.
DEATH FIRST
just saying’
Have we filled all of the Possible Job Positions that are laid out in Broadchurch and/or Gracepoint?
I was thinking Murder She Wrote.
Lottery Winner with one of those houses on the dunes overlooking the beach
as long as I can all of a sudden move into that old house no one’s lived in for years, the one with a widow’s walk that I can use to longingly stare out towards sea, and there’s plenty of vague but unconfirmed rumors about me amongst the townsfolk, I don’t really care what my job description is.
I will be your roommate in this old house! Pretty please!
I was going to be the bicycle-mounted ice cream cart lady (never more than four flavours, never more than two boring ones), then I saw there’s already a shaved-ice bike making its rounds… But actually that has made me MORE determined because now I can take shaved-ice days off and read paperbacks in the dunes. Excellent. Plus every day that’s too windy for sticky foods, because I want those to myself to wade about in rainboots and a windbreaker.
… I think I just came up with a potentially lovely non-boring ice cream flavour. Must experiment SOON
Tell us!
I was thinking maybe browned bread and whiskey? But I’d need to come up with a suitably malty bread recipe first because the last brown bread ice cream I had tasted disappointingly like crumbled toast in milk. Anyway, once I’ve fixed that, look for my ice cream bicycle.
Mrs. Rachel Lynde.
BRAVA
“Nosy Librarian With a Penchant for Solving Crimes”
It’s meeeee. Whelp. Minus the actually solving crimes part.
We’ll start you off with some easy crimes, like who stole our theater wigs.
Proprietess of the hole-in-the-wall seafood restaurant that doesn’t look like much outside but is universally acknowledged by locals and regular visitors as having the Best Chowder (and also other assorted delicious seafood dishes).
oooh, my upscale chef character haaaates you, but it’s just professional jealousy masking romantic tension. Will they or won’t they?!
(“I can’t take her seriously, her ‘recipes’ are just ‘add another quart of butter to the pot!’ She’s never even HEARD of cilantro! What on EARTH does everyone SEE in her?”)
Stars Hollow has room for both Sookie and Luke; Toast-by-the-Sea can have room for both of us!
Dirtbaggy tattoo shop owner who cleans up nice for dates with the new librarian.
Driver of the single, underfunded public transit bus in the county; greets every passenger on the hour-long circular route by name; has lunch supplied by different old lady passenger every day.
Ferris wheel operator who is an unreliable witness in several local murder mysteries (due to central location and late hours of occupation); might remember what they actually saw if you buy them another beer
Comic book store proprietor who never works in her store, just leaves it to the local kids who know better about what’s new in comics, and rides a bike taxi to her other appointments, and also has a seat on the school council.
Freelance Wind Chime Artisan <——-THIS!! I’ve been wanting to take welding lessons FOREVER! Maybe moving to a beach would be motivation enough….
Liason For The Local Group of Crystal-Based Alien Superhero Women, And Their Hybrid Nephew.
Is this the first time someone mentioned this?
Might be!
I’ll be the Eccentric Lady Farmer who Lives on the Bluffs Overlooking the Ocean with Her Flock of Sheep and May or May Not Have Pushed Someone Over the Cliff Once.
The Librarian Detective will be my best friend.
The Librarian Detective will Know What Really Happened That Fateful Night, I assume?
That’s why she keeps the Detective so close!
Indeed, indeed. The scoundrel was trying to extort money from her, after all.
I am the jovial upright walking retired sea captain with eyes that change colour with the sea. I greet everyone. For unknown reasons I will not speak to the slouching man who lowers and raises the flag each day at Central Square.
Dirtbag Skateboarding Teen Who Runs the Prize Counter At the Arcade and Subsists On Snack Bar Pizza Slices Paid for Entirely In Quarters
aka THE DREAM
Henna artist, somehow avoiding cultural appropriation with a smile and a Rumi slogan.
Also, white woman who braids white children’s hair into corn rows, only during the summer.
Also, nail technician who can draw sailboats, dolphins, and manatees on your nails and big toe.
I have been watching Murder She Wrote all weekend so I am ready:
* Innocent, beautiful heiress who moves to town to inherit a huge and possibly haunted estate.
* Friendly waitress/ bartender who knows your regular order but minds her own business and will not gossip about other people no matter how much you pry because she doesn’t want to be murdered.
*Eccentric hippie who leads the elderly in beach-side tai chi and meditation
*Proprietress of a small, charming occult gift shop/ tarot reading
*Distant relative who comes to care for a cranky older person and ends up winning over the town and the cranky relative.
*Spinster librarian with a secret past
I love Murder She Wrote so much. I’ll be the young widow who isn’t interested in remarrying but throws herself into gardening and community theater and refuses to be frightened of living in a big old house alone.
“Why should I be afraid? Hank and I spent the best years of our lives in this house, and I’m not going to leave it now.” Someone wants me to leave the house for some reason, but I refuse. And no, that portrait falling to the floor was not Hank’s ghost! Hank is at peace.
Waitress/proprietor of the diner who mostly serves coffee and is free to be as rude as she wants to all the eccentrics who get on her nerves (in keeping with the Stars Hollow references, I want to be Luke, basically).
I grew up at the beach, so I know. I was Overly Anxious Junior Innkeeper Ineptly Trying To Seduce The Nightwatchman.
Wow. You were living the 90s sitcom dream, weren’t you? for real
Oh, and let’s not forget Novelty T-Shirt Slogan Creator/ Designer. The ideal candidate designs shirts in the following themes; crab based puns, regular puns,naughty puns, property of [insert community name here] athletic department, obscene, Keep Calm and…, and Life is better at the Beach.
Must show up to every festival, local election, post-storm cleanup, or bake sale with armload of mostly size XXL t-shirts, grinning proudly at the pun they came up with for the occasion.
Deckhand on the lovely yacht that is anchored in the bay. Every day I row the boat across to collect milk and a paper and then return. Sometimes you see me shaking out a sail, as if we’re about to slip anchor and sail away. We never do.
Do we ever see the owner of the yacht, or is the nosy librarian with a penchant for solving crimes going to need to get involved here?
I’ll be the gossip who says “Well SOMEONE drinks all that milk, and it ain’t a ghost.”
Owner/Editor of Sandpiper House, an indie micropublisher specializing in
-recipe books
-compilations of local legends and ghost stories
-cozy mysteries
-shipwreck maps
-my own poetry
Based on the episode of that Debi Mazar food show I saw last weekend, I would like to be Person Who Brings A Rolling Bar Cart Onto The Beach.
Okay, I’m in a serious dilemma here. My absolute favorite thing to do at the beach is boogie board for several hours straight. I am not coordinated enough, and the waves are not large enough at my beach, for surfing to have ever been an option. Therefore, I can’t be any of the Surfer archetypes. In fact, there are no boogie boarder archetypes. Where can I fit into the charming storybook beachside town with an epidemic of murder mysteries, banter-filled rivalry romances, and occasional Evil Business Developer intrigue?
Enthusiastic boogie boarder who is always trying to recruit other people at the beach to boogie board.
Boogie Board instructor adjacent, not-letting-toddlers-drown division; Boogie Board rental associate; regional representative for Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax.
Late-in-Life Independently Wealthy Potter Who Supplies Beautiful One-of-a-Kind Coffee Mugs to All the Local Eateries
Pretty sure all of these can be found in Sarah Dessen books.
I was just thinking about Sarah Dessen. Eccentric and Kind Maker of Handmade Greetings Cards?
Permanently hassled and angry New York documentary maker.
And her artist/laundromat owner/baker subject.
Pretty thrilled my job is still open.
Bartender who sleeps with whomever the hell she wants , however the hell she wants, but is particular and discriminating in a seemingly algorithmic way. She never lets them stay the night, she never sees them more than once, and she isn’t looking for anyone with white knight tendencies.
Also, she has managed her money like an investment banker and will one day retire and collect rent from everyone else in town.
Ah, and I am that Wild Child of the 60’s who sits at your bar on the same stool every day. We know everything about each other, past, present, and future, and give zero fucks. No one has any idea of where I live, where I go, or how the hell I have money (except you, of course).
Wetherbeaten beach comber in a tattered black dress who always knows when the storms will hit and is out as soon as the winds begin to drop. Everyone would be suspicious that I was a witch or something but I would always be there to rescue people dumb enough not to take my advice about then it’s time to shelter from the wind and the waves.
Currently live at the beach, call me “Prodigal Daughter Returned to Work at Marine Science Lab with Famous Scientist Father, Everyone in Town Whispers About Her Spinster Status.”
10/10 would read this novel
Has anyone claimed the post office? I’ll be the sole employee: cranky Postmistress (and I want THAT title) who hands over mail to townies and makes comments like “yer boy wrote-cha today, why ain’t we seen him round fer so long?” I’ll veer between bless-your-heart phony politeness and grunts to the summer residents. Defying federal law, I’ll open and close on my own schedule, and have a small area behind the fraying linoleum counter for my tea kettle, plate of cookies and whatever book I’m reading, and that “closed for 15 minutes, back soon” sign means I’m deep in Chapter 23 and just can’t be disturbed right now. Oh, and there will be at least one Post Office Cat.
This beach town is much more idyllic than the Gulf Coast island I grew up in, which has openings for:
The Town Methhead who Paints Houses and Asks You for Money for Extra Paint, Only Two Weeks Later Your Neighbors Houses Get Painted Matching Colors
Coast Guard Officers who Date High School Girls
Continually Failing Restaurateurs Who Just Had a Dream
That Guy Who Lives in A Tent on the Beach With His Dog
Town Developers, Continually Convinced Environmental Laws are Holding This Place Back
Town Environmentalists, Continually Convinced Evil Developers Are Ruining This Town for Good
A British Guy Who Saves Sea Turtles, No One Really Knows How He Got Here
Have you seen the movie Sunshine State? It is very much that town (also every smallish town, it hits very close to home)
No, I’ll have to check it out though.
I’m just gonna go ahead and assume this is Dauphin Island.
In which case you forgot Guy Who Keeps A Deer As A Pet.
Handsome Older Lesbian Riding Her Stallion On the Beach
Billionaire Genius Playgirl Philanthropist
Crystal Gem Fusion
(I assume we are all moving to the same town? Toast-by-the-Sea? Let’s go!)
Is this something we could crowdfund, maybe? Kickstarter? Maybe if we each donate a bucketful of sand, it will happen.
I would like to be burly tug boat pilot/sea rescue. But I also really want an ice cream and Teddy bear store.
In fairer weather, you can run the ice cream and teddy bear emporium. BUT WHEN YOU ARE NEEDED, you close shop, hoist your rescue flag, and hang the custom BACK IN [catastrophic scale] MINUTES sign.
PS I am pretty sure that I just scrolled through this entire thread and thumbed-up every. single. comment.
Artist sitting on the boardwalk all day doing intricate wood-burning drawings with the power of a magnifying glass and the sun, please!
Can I run the General Store between the Post Office and the Milk Bar? My skills include mild grumbliness with eyebrows that convey depth of emotion and an insistence on scritching all dogs and holding conversations with the Post Office Cat.
i didn’t know i had a career goal until i saw Owner/Sole Employee of Gently Used Paperback Shop, but now i know for sure where fate is leading me
There really is one of these in one of my favorite MA beach towns. A lot of us city people go in there when there’s an unexpected thunderstorm or just to kill time while we wait for the train back home.
I’ll run the only kite shop in the larger area and will sell both high and low-end kites (for kids and adults who take kites Really Serious), kites for kite surfers, and all kinds of strange odds and ends to repair your sad, crashed kites. I will happily explain weather, tides, and wind velocity to you for hours on end. The shop will only open erratically, and usually there will be a crude handwritten sign in the door stating “Down at the beach. In case of emergency: yarn shop has my cell number.” Customer will drive miles to be disappointed by my opening hours.
Tidepool scientist looking to discover new species/solve global warming, but whose only discovery is the body that washed ashore.
Be reasonable, Doc. This town survives on tourism, You can’t demand that we close the beaches over the Fourth of July weekend, just because of one body with mysteriously large, suspicious-looking “limpet marks.” This was probably just a boating accident.
Dancing daughter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZFK8svwtxA
What about all the less glamorous but necessary jobs, like:
-Corrupt mayor who is tight with developers but has a change of heart at the last minute and makes the right choice for the town upon seeing the dedication of the locals.
-Lawyer with ambiguous ethics who works for developers but falls in love with someone in the town and uses their powers for good against the evil developers.
-EVIL DEVELOPERS. Doesn’t matter what’s being developed (real estate? a factory that will dump toxic waste into the ocean? a secret club that kills and eats endangered animals?) because we will know the developers are evil by their dickish treatment of local kids, belittling of people’s quaint livelihoods, insulting that one guy no one likes but will rally around against a common enemy, and talking loudly on a cell phone in places like the sweet used book shop, the organic coffee shop/cafe, and town meetings they’re supposed to be presenting their development ideas at but have to step out of because of a Very Important Call.
I mean, I know I’VE always wanted to be evil/slightly ethically ambiguous, and nothing bad will happen to me as a result anyway, I’ll just leave in shame and go on to the next little beach town.
Could I be the old man running the local antiques store, whom everyone lovingly calls “our local confirmed bachelor”? The store will naturally be meticulously clean and never seems to sell much merchandise, but everyone still likes to visit, if only to have a cup of tea or a small sherry. Whenever someone enters I’ll either be dusting the merchandise or cleaning my neat little pince-nez glasses.
Disappointed at the lack of Stephen Universe in this thread (I did just quickly skim though).
I did post something about it.
Then my ctrl-F skills failed me :(. But I’m glad it was mentioned as I was too late for this post!
Woman who knows everything about everyone and then some, but when pressed, smiles and gently shakes her head while sipping iced tea and wiping dirt from her forehead because I am busy tending to my adorable organic seaside garden and the carrots need thinning!
4th generation ice cream shop owner that was doing “artisan” flavors before it became a thing
Local Police Blotter writer that has been working on a crime/detective series for years
Whale watch tour guide that respects the whales and will not get too close to them because they are already stressed out by all the other boats in the water and advocates on their behalf
Beach town jobs I currently have:
Beachgoer That Does Not Care About How Much Skin Is Exposed And Is Also The Chief Of The Sunscreen Police Because Skin Cancer (truly a position/lifestyle at odds with itself)
Mysterious Adult Woman Who Arrives At The Golden Hour Everyday To Let Out A Big Whoop Before Cannonballing Into The Water To Swim Til The Sun Sets
Non-Retired Person That Birds
Person That Yells At People For Not Looking Before Crossing The Bike Path
Skeeball operator.
Sassy, gum-chewing waitress-cum-actress at the diner.
Owner of eclectic, upscale beachware boutique.
Five And Dime Store Attendant Who Lets Kids Get Away With a Little More Gummy Candy in Their Bags Than They Paid For
I grew up in a (New England!) beach town and went from being the kid who was fascinated with tide pools and all the creatures that lived in them to the teen who spent hours at at time talking to my sort-of best friend as she sold hot dogs to beach goers from her father’s cart.
Town witch with a dog who lives in that lovely cottage on the hill overlooking the waves.
Mostly keeps to themselves but knows everyone’s business.
All the summer party gifts are just jars of sea glass or sea shells but they’re just so soothing when you hold them everyone says.
No one’s drowned since they moved to town, but people do just go missing sometimes. The ones their dog doesn’t like at all.
Tourists rarely see them except when they’re out in the fog a little too late, when the fog seems to almost be alive and the town witch just appears and takes them gently by the elbow “come along now let’s get you home. No need for any unpleasantness tonight.”
I actually have a cool beach job. My grandfather taught me to tie knots, and now I work full time as someone that ties beach bracelets while I look out the shop window on the Mystic River 🙂
Tea witch! Or basically Sandra Bullock’s character in Practical Magic, but on a beach.
I can be a cranky hermit rumored to be a witch (but actually with a heart of gold) in any sort of town, but a beach town would definitely be the most pleasant setting for it. Eccentric beachcomber witch-hermit, maybe? The stories are that I use the things I gather in my evil witchcraft but really what I do is set them up into elaborate and meticulously-researched private museum displays in my home.
I spent much of last year living in a tiny beach town, and I had so many dreams of the long walks I would take and the worthy thoughts I would have. Unfortunately, in reality I became even more of a hermit and spent most of my time on the internet in pajamas. Turns out 27 is possibly too young to retire to the beach.
Also, greetings Toasties!
I live at the beach (not in the States, but in my adopted home of Australia) and it is glorious. The roles I have taken on since moving here include:
– Morning beach runner / seashell gatherer/ tourist observer/ sunrise & sunset photo taker (all of these things are done simultaneously)
– Incompetent (but trying!) surfer
– Sunbathing coffee drinker
Obviously none of these jobs provide an income, but a surprising number of people (who are not me – I have a non-sandy 9-5) seem to fill in for me during the weekday hours.
Is there an opening for a grey bearded man of indeterminate age, who repairs the wooden gingerbread on seaside cottages and curmudgeonly rescues cats from high places ( while secretly thinking that they are adorable).
I should think so, particularly if you are always scrupulously exact in your terminology. You wouldn’t correct anyone, necessarily, but you would *never* confuse a bay window with an oriel window; you would refer to houses as “the Eastlake bungalow” or “the Italianate cottage with stray Queen Anne features”. You would specialize in making handmade replacements for damaged gingerbread. They are always a perfect match for the originals except for being somehow better.
I do live at the beach, but in this other smaller beachtown I will be the Flowy-clothed and Silver-Jewelleried Proprietress of the Fancy Homewares/Art/Kitchenware/Jewellery Gallery. I stock and can talk at length about all the local artists’ pieces and assorted imported things, which Townies/Tourists will clamour to pay dearly for, and which, although they never look quite as great as they did in my whitewashed shop floor amongst all the other natural materials and exotic patterns and healthy plants, will nevertheless be endlessly admired by their purchasers and all guests to their home. My shop will open midmorning-ish depending on the season, and you’ll all drop past for a glass of wine with me on the long summer nights when I stay open for tipsy post-dinner shoppers. Friends will be able to barter or buy my wares at heavily discounted prices. I’ll garden and make furniture in my spare time, and have a beautiful black flatcoated retriever. #AlternateLifeDreams
Wine-Loving Portal Guardian and Unicorn Lookout
…King Haggard’s castle was basically an undiscovered beach town.
The Toast, I hereby pledge that if I ever win an enormous amount of money I will spend it on buying a small beach front town so that all of these dreams can come true.
Lady In Floppy Clothing Who Berates Tourists For Shooing The Seagulls Away From Their Picnic. “They have a message for me.”
Gravedigger With Suspicious Collection Of Collarbones.
Selkie
or
Whatever You Would Call A Selkie That’s A Lobster Instead Of A Seal.
I would just be the wine-soaked local resident in breezy LL Bean summer outfits, wandering around town two-sheets to the wind with a welcoming smile and just making any old small talk with the tourists, finishing my conversations with a touch on the arm or even a hug, and a “Welcome, welcome!”
Widowed Novelist Who Solves Mysteries On The Side…oh wait, that position’s already been taken.
Hammock Tester
Stray Cat Feeder
Dog Sitter (aka Lady Who Plays with Tourists’ Dogs So Tourists Can Do Touristy Things)
B&B Reviewer
Meave Binchy’s Title Character’s Best Friend Who Finds Love , a Dog, and a Small Fortune and Lives Happily Ever After
*I am willing to fulfill all of these roles simultaneously.
I grew up in a beach town, and have held several of these jobs. My last, and most favorite, was Front Desk At Book-Themed B&B. My mom is Greeting Card Shop Owner/Ghost Hunter, and my dad is Marine Supply Store Proprietor Who Knows Everyone.
I FORGOT UNTIL TODAY but there was a COFFEE BOAT in the marina of the tiny town on the Oregon coast where I went with my grandparents, and I think that coffee boat might be my actual destiny.
The coffee station person at the local Wawa (chain convenience store).
GIRL I think we posted at the exact same time. Hi, howaya.
Did it. I was the Video Store Clerk Who Knew Your Porn Preferences And Pretended Not To Recognize You When I Went To The Bar.
GIRL I think we posted at the exact same time. Hi, howaya.
This is an A++ business plan. Would you be interested in merging it with my imaginary tea shop, which has a back room where customers can smash china after genteely sipping tea from it? It would provide a good transition from the tea space to the punk space.
Radio DJ Overly Attached to Playing “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” on the Fifteens
I am a nosy librarian, but I reject my fate as a plucky sleuth just for the privilege and small joy of hourly needle-drops on Looking Glass.
The sole Non-Artistic Logistical/Technical Person at the VIllage Playhouse, hauling lumber in my beat-up pick-up, patching holes in the roof from hurricane damage, always flustered and covered in paint but with wild crunchy seawater hair.
A little bit late but beach towns operate at their own pace, yes?
Former big city lawyer turned beach town magistrate who hears cases involving a number of other beach town characters already mentioned in this thread 🙂
SeaChange – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mnycD81yGw
Man, I’ve always wanted to be a Sand Dune Treasure Hunter. I just checked and there’s only one opening for it. Looks like we’ll have to fight for it!
Lemme guess: The Nosy Town Reporter is also a Plucky Pre-Teen/Teen? Or possibly a 20-Something Just Returned From College, Desperate to Pay Back Their Student Loans Taking Any Story They Could Get?