I realize I’m giving away a bit of the story’s climax within the title, but if you’ve read my counterpart’s disertation on the day at the beach’s events, you already have an idea of the special unique sea treasure we found washed up just a few hundred feet from where we decided to set up camp for the day.
What we were trying to do was avoid the hording crowds of families at the beach that initially foggy then sunny day. We walked far past the last 
encampment of people, turned out to be two sunbathers who must have had the same idea, though I doubt they had the dubious honor of having carcass flies alighting on their face as they were resting and taking in the thick fog that was clouding the day. At one point it ran through my mind that the fly on my nose probably spawned the day before from the maggot farm that was running amoke in this departed creature’s life-vessel. I could almost taste the rancid seal blubber.
Apparently Mushy had lost a bet with his fellow sea lion buddies. You know the kind of friends, the bad influence.
Hey, Mushy, I dare you to dart in and out of that forbidden black sea trench over there, the one Whiskers disappeared in last year. What’s a matter Mushy? Chicken?
Mushy: Nobody…nobody calls me chicken Needles! Nobody!
And thusly, Mushy is quickly dispatched by a great white when his head is seperated from his body. Thankfully his reeking, fly-ridden corpse is gracefully adorned with a feather, stuck 
haphazardly into his gooey back meat. Mmm, my mouth is just watering at the thought. Decayed sea lion flesh, rotting slowly in the sun, slowly being decomposed by thousands of sand fleas and beach maggots. If the thought of that is disgusting, then you’re accurately reflecting what we were thinking as we watched family after family journey down the beach to take in the spectacle. Granted, we both had to have a look ourselves, call it an innate human fascination with death, but it became a little obnoxious as the day wore on and more and more people made the journey to washed up sea carcass mecca, trudging past our place on the beach.
Whatever, kids gotta learn about death at some point, why not on that happy day trip to the beach?
