In honor of my sisters' Destin trip without me--Sunscreen, Sisterhood, and the Great Thong Rebellion

 In honor of my sisters departing for Destin today—without me—I thought I’d dig into the past and write a blog specifically for my beloved Jennifer and Jessica. It feels so weird that this is the first trip you’re taking to Destin without Mom and Dad. I can’t tell if it’s a rite of passage or the beginning of them officially deciding they’d rather just stay home. Either way, I cried a little this morning realizing my family wouldn’t be there with you. I’m holding you to that thing you said about going back in August—because it is a moral imperative that I get a picture of Ashley’s little feet touching the Gulf for the first time. I need it next to the photos of the other seven cousins, and then we’ll just have to wait for Brian and Evie’s kids to keep the tradition going. They both say it may be a while. I guess I do technically have Brian here in Arizona with me—but let’s be honest, even at 25, Brian is still the same annoying shit he’s always been, and I would trade him for you two in a heartbeat. But we love Brian. Okay. I’ll say it again until I believe it: we. love. Brian.

Please try to read this together on the road! Jenn, I’m serious—wait for Jess.

I’ve mentioned before that thongs were forbidden in our house (well the undergarments, not the shoes). Not because Mom thought they were sinful, but because she considered them unsanitary. Which is maybe worse. She treated them like biohazards. Thong underwear was common enough when we were growing up, but thong swimsuits were rare—so when our older cousin wore one during a family trip and proudly flaunted her bare butt cheeks straight from her rental car through the condo and onto the beach, Mom was shook. Her eyes followed our cousin all the way out the sliding glass door, and then she turned to us and said, “That much skin against a rental car seat? Don’t you even think about it, girls.” Like it was a CDC warning.

So obviously, the first time we had half a chance and were away from our parents, we used the time to go buy thong bikinis.

Jenn picked out a black one with little gold rings on the hips. She told me me that the green one I liked made me look like a glow stick. I bought it anyway. If I was defying Mom, I could defy Jenn too. Jess went straight for a bright pink one that looked like it had been calling her name since birth. Jenn had just been through a breakup but was open to a summer rebound. I had Bubs. Jess was certain the pink thong bikini set was her ticket to a summer romance that would eclipse all others.

I don’t remember exactly how we pulled it off—I think we told Mom and Dad we were going to check out a new condo being built down the beach. (Though that might’ve been another time we leaned hard on the “lie now, confess later” approach to our Episcopalian upbringing.) Either way, we knew we couldn’t wear our new suits in front of the family condos. Too many parents, aunts, uncles, little cousins—and God knows what Brian would’ve done with the knowledge that his three older sisters were out there exposing their butts to the elements in defiance of Mom’s health-and-safety warnings.

We walked about a mile down the beach until we found a stretch with fewer people--or at least people we didn't know. The moment our cover-ups came off, we started giggling. Not out of embarrassment, but in full-body disbelief. “OH MY GOD,” Jenn shrieked, “I CAN FEEL THE BREEZE ON MY CRACK.” The fabric was barely there—less than a scrunchie and twice as revealing.

But honestly? The Florida sun felt kind of amazing on our bare cheeks. Jenn was the first to get practical: “We have to put on sunscreen or we’re going to get third-degree ass burns,” she said in her usual take-charge tone. “Seriously. One of you. Help me.”

There was a pause. A heavy, sisterly pause.

“Wait,” I said. “You want me to... touch your butt?”

“Unless you want to explain to Mom how you scorched your entire ass because you were wearing dental floss—then yes!”

I took care of Jenn first. It was so surreal, I felt like I might throw up from laughing. But it got worse—better?—when Jess rubbed sunscreen on my butt in slow, methodical circles I thought this was it--I may actually die from laughing so hard and I didn't think any more laughter was possible. That was until Jenn and I knelt on either side of Jess and each took a cheek like we were prepping her for rotisserie. There have only been maybe three or four times in my life where I actually prayed for laughter to stop because it hurt too much. That day was one of them.

As Jenn and I smacked Jess’s sunscreen-covered butt, she was scream-laughing, gasping, “This is so wrong,” and then, gagging through laughter, “I’m putting this in my diary" (do you you one better honey, I'm putting in my blog--years later). 

“If you think I’m letting you get the center line, you’re insane,” she added, squirming as we dabbed delicately around the edge of her thong like we were forensics techs at a crime scene.

It was not glamorous. We did not look hot. We looked like three unhinged girls absolutely losing it on the white sugar beaches of NW Florida.

Then we heard voices. Boy voices. Close ones.

Jenn dropped like she’d been shot. “Get down!”

“Get down to where?!” I whisper-screamed. We had towels, beach bags, and barely any fabric on our bodies—what exactly was the plan?

We panicked and tried bury ourselves into our outstretched towels , but it was too late. Two guys—probably seventeen or eighteen, shirtless, tan, and absolutely the kind of guys we were trying to impress—popped upon us and immediately saw what must’ve looked like a sisterly butt massage train.

We froze. They froze. I was trying to look cool but realized I still had one hand resting on Jess’s hip. She looked like she wanted to dig a hole and disappear. Jenn tried to act unfazed, which somehow made it worse.

“Uh… hey,” one of them said. And then—God bless him—he turned around and walked away while trying to contain his snickering but failing miserably. His friend gave us a kind of sympathetic thumbs-up before following.

We waited until they were out of sight before collapsing in the sand, screaming into our towels.

“Oh my God. Oh my God.”

No one could talk for a full minute. Finally, Jess broke the silence: “They’re going to tell people we were doing a sunscreen orgy.”

Jenn and I lost it all over again—wracked with laughter so intense it made our abs hurt. Jess tried to stay mad but cracked up too.

Once we’d composed ourselves, we decided that since we’d already given those guys a full show, we might as well hang out a bit longer and see if they came back. One sister with a boyfriend and two on the prowl seemed like the perfect ratio for an accidental beach meet-cute.

They never came back.

But we did get some truly incredible tan lines--and no butt burns that we had to tell our mom about.