Adventures in Squishy ‘Rocks’ and Virtual Crabs

Daily writing prompt

Beach or mountains? Which do you prefer? Why?

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Beach or mountains? Easy. Beach.
Which is hilarious, considering I can’t swim and the ocean would absolutely win in a death match. But ever since middle school—aka three consecutive years of character development I did not ask for—I’ve been obsessed with the beach.

Why? Definitely not for the drowning potential. More for the chaos of discovering an entire zoo’s worth of creatures hiding in plain sight on one stretch of sand. Florida summers with my family were basically my personal side quests. One year, I even thought I found a gorgeous clear rock with this amber glow in the center. A jewel. A treasure. Something worthy of my rock collection.

So naturally, I knelt down, touched it… and it squished.

Yep. My “precious gemstone” was a jellyfish. A beached, possibly dead, definitely squishy jellyfish. I, being a child with questionable judgment, dragged my mother over like I’d uncovered Atlantis. She didn’t even blink—just shoved a bottle of seawater at me and went, “Stick it in here.” I had never seen that woman so excited. Meanwhile, I’m standing there thinking, “So this is how family heirlooms start.”

Since there wasn’t a beach near our home, the rest of my ocean education came from MMORPGs. Pro tip: virtual beaches are all fun and games until a giant blue crab wearing a crown charges across the sand to murder your character. Nothing humbles you like getting steamrolled by royalty.

So yeah—team beach forever. Not because I’m graceful in water or anything… more because it’s the only place where real life and my childhood imagination matched in sheer, unhinged energy.