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I recently took several middle school boys to the beach for a week.

It was seven days full of complete grossness and insanity mixed with nonstop amusement.

The best thing about the trip was that beforehand I thought it was just my boys that had poor personal hygiene and a complete lack of impulse control, but it turns out, I was wrong. Every boy this age, even the ones from those really proper, freakily well-mannered families, develops severe ADHD when crammed into a beachside cottage with the cast of Animal House.

So, here are a few tips for your next trip with these kids.

All they need to pack for the week is one bathing suit. That is it. No clothes, no underwear, no pajamas. Trust me, that one sandy bathing suit will suffice for days, and nights, and days and nights, on end.

And that toothbrush and deodorant…it never leaves the bottom of the duffle bag.

We are ALL losing the battle of teaching our boys to put down the toilet seat after peeing,

…and getting all of that pee actually into the toilet, also a lost cause.

Farting is a well-honed skill best shared in a crowded car stuck in steamy beach traffic where it will be met with the loud applause, cheers and high fives it apparently deserves.

Everything in life is a Gladiator fight-to-the-death competition. Everything: from whose car fart is the smelliest, to who can go the longest without brushing their teeth, to who can survive walking the longest on burning, hot sand, to who can win a hula-hooping contest against a bunch of seven-year-old girls.

“You suck” is a phrase that is used to mean everything from, “Good morning” to “I love you, man” to “I will so kick your ass at hula hooping today.”

The more disgusting something is, the cooler it is. Poking at a dead seagull to see the maggots swarm out – cool. Snorting warm Kool-Aid through your nose – also cool. Watching the winner of the walking-on-hot-sand-contest pop open the blisters on his burnt bare feet – super cool. (All true stories btw.)

Any man on the beach wearing a banana hammock, no matter how tattooed or jacked on steroids he may be, is fair fodder for a week’s worth of ridicule.

Any woman wearing a thong is also fodder for a week’s worth of ridicule, as well as many other discussions…

Any item, at any time, i.e. empty juice boxes, hermit crabs, seaweed, shells, etc., is in fact a missile and can and will be launched at any unsuspecting friend, cousin, sibling or innocent-sun bathing-just-trying-to-read-my-book-leave-me-the-hell-alone mother.

No amount of yelling, “It’s time to go! NOW!” by a middle-aged woman balancing several folded beach chairs, a mountain of wet towels, some boogie boards, a folded umbrella and an empty cooler, will stop a beach whiffle ball game.

The only decent reason to even think of stopping a beach whiffle ball game is to watch a pack of teenage girls in bikinis walk by.

The phrase “outdoor shower” is a misnomer. This space should more accurately be called, “The Chamber of Penis Ridicule and Towel Snapping.”

Barbequing is expected to begin immediately upon your return from the beach and to end somewhere after midnight.

After you swill down a bottle of wine and pass out, exhausted, on the couch, one boy will put a pillow under your head, one will cover you with a blanket, one will turn out the lights and one will whisper in your ear, “Good night Mom, love you.”

Originally on BluntMoms