Summer is over

This is blocking the view.

Good thing summer is over.

Source: Flickr/CC-BY-2.0/Kyle May

Think of it this way, he has from October to May to hit the gym and start working out.  If he remains the same, Paul Sullivan has something to say about it.

You’ll have to fake it.

Turning that spare tire into a six-pack will take the whole summer and you’ll be ready for your beach close-up just in time to head back to school, fool.

There are a number of things you can do, like suck your stomach in as you stroll, all nonchalant, along the shore. If anyone asks why your face is so red, just tell them you burn easily from the neck up. Like all those other red-faced shore stalkers going by.

Then there’s the briefest-possible-moment-of-exposure tactic. Just drag your beach blanket and mummy kit as close to the water as you can without being swamped, then disrobe quickly, flashing your bi- or mono-kini, and then immerse yourself up to your neck as quickly as possible.

To get out of the water successfully, repeat in reverse. Do not, like Daniel Craig, emerge from the surf in glorious 3D slow motion. You’ll scare the little kids on the beach.

Make sure to do whatever you can to avoid the inverse beach fitness rule. That is: The less fit you are, the more flesh you expose. Don’t be that guy with the beach ball for a belly and the speedo. If that bikini didn’t look quite right in that artfully lit Swimco mirror, how do you think it’s going to look out here, in the stark light of day?

I don’t want to cramp your style, but you don’t have any, especially when your body is a gallery of all your deepest thoughts written in flesh. Tattoos, even Angelina Jolie’s — especially Angelina Jolie’s — don’t make it better. You look like human graffiti.

There are some people, of course, who look fantastic on the beach, all fresh and tousled and tanned. They’re called children. They don’t count.

Paul Sullivan is a writer for a local newspaper, Metro News.