Every boy needs his sugar mama…

Not long ago, I won the lottery. Well not really, I’m still broke as shit, but as far as surf trips go I was able to cash-in the winning ticket.

It was Saint Patrick’s Day and I was eager to get out of work to celebrate my heritage of being predisposed to alcoholism. I left work and met up with friends to do what I figured was going to be a night of booze and poor decisions, but it wasn’t quite that.

I find my friends sitting at the little back bar of the restaurant casually drinking beer and watching the Rangers hockey game. I grab a beer and try to find out what the big plan for the night was and they reply with, “You’re looking at it.”

And though I was mildly disappointed that it wasn’t going to be a typical Saint Patrick’s Day of getting blacked out drunk, I shifted gears in my head and prepared to have a mellow one. We watched the end of the game, which went to overtime, and the Rangers lost and we promptly left after that.

On the way back we stop at the gas station to get some alcohol for a nightcap at the house. We drink a few drinks and watch some TV on the couch, nothing exciting. While sitting there that little part of my brain, and by little part I mean basically 96.72 percent part of my brain, starts going “Hey, I’m horny and it’s not too late to find some one to have sexy time with.”

Seeing as I’m part of a generation that relies on a little rectangle to solve all life problems, I send out texts to my typical booty calls. No luck. Then I start swiping right to every girl hoping for a match to help me in my situation.

I swipe through my allotted amount of swipes on Tinder, thanks assholes for taking away unlimited swipes, with no luck. I then move on to Bumble They give you as many swipes as you want and swipe right on every girl that comes across my screen. I never swipe left. Always swipe right, you don’t always get the prettiest girls that way but unless you look like my friend Zander chances are you won’t get those girls anyways so have fun with the girls in that three-to-seven range. It’s good karma.

I get a few matches, but the unfortunate part of Bumble is that the women have to talk to you first. Luckily for me one of my matches strikes up a conversation, we’ll call her Sharron, and I don’t have the conversation anymore but it more or less goes that she was recently divorced and very horny and that I was very wine drunk and very horny so we decide to meet up. She sends me her address, I request an Uber, I’m on my way. I arrive to her house and we do what horny people do. It was good fun.

The next morning we talk for a little bit and I find out a little about her and her life. She’s in her early forties, she is freshly divorced, has a new pair of boobs, has a small litter of children and is trying to figure out the whole internet dating thing. She seems like a nice lady overall and she gives me a ride back to my car in the morning. I figure that would be the end of my interactions with her because that’s typically how the whole dating app scene works.

I was wrong.

The next weekend rolls around and it’s my good buddy RJ’s 30th birthday. It was a fantastic weekend filled with a Bruce Springsteen concert, dancing, stick-horse racing, friends, alcohol, and much more. The end of the night comes around and I receive a text from Sharron asking me what I was doing.

I ask RJ if he would be bummed if I left his party to go over there and he said he was going to bed soon and didn’t give a shit, so I did. The next morning I felt like pure hell. While laying in her bed thinking about how my head feels like it was just kicked for a 69-yard field goal I start up a conversation with Sharron complaining about my hangover.

Me: “Ugh, I feel awful. I have zero interest in going to work today.”
Sharron: “Aw, I’m sorry. It sounds like you need a vacation.”
Me: “Yeah, but who doesn’t?”
Sharron: “I need a vacation too. Want to go on vacation with me?”
Me: “Sure, where do you want to go?”

Now I expected her to say go to Malibu or Mexico or somewhere within driving distance. But she says, “I love Tavarua. Want to go there?”

Me: “I would love to go there, but have no where near the money for that shit I’m broke.”
Sharron: “No, like, I’ll take you there”

I tell her, of course I would like to go there, but figured she was bluffing and wrote it off in my brain that anyone would want to take me to the place that I’ve dreamed about going to more than any other place in the world.

Two weeks later I got a call from her asking for my info so she could send it to the travel agent. Suddenly I’m like D Ray from the decline, “Fiji on zero dollars a day. That’s where you have to find yourself the rich girlfriend kids.”

I’ll fast-forward two months through all the trivial shit. I’m packed, the swell is going to be firing eight-to-twelve feet with bigger sets, and I have the excitement level of a kid waking up to Christmas and sees that they have a monster truck in the front yard. (By the way, that would still be the greatest gift ever Santa.)

We arrive to Tavarua at 11:30 am Fijian time. I am still filled with excitement and disbelief as I step off the boat and my feet sink into the warm white sand surrounded by clear blue water. Videos, pictures, words and stories don’t do the place justice. It’s, literally, the best place in the world.

Alongside me and my lady friend getting off the boat is Balaram Stack, Reef McIntosh, Ryan Burch and Lucas Drikse. Bal and I talk about his recent West Oz trip and he tells me how good were going to score, which makes me think that I should tell Sharron the program I’m going to be on.

I tell her that I really like surfing, like surf-ten-hours-a-day like surfing, and that the first two days she’s not going to see me much. She tells me that she comes from a surf family and she gets it, so I should just have fun.

I’m not going to go through and tell you about the waves we scored. You’ve seen videos of Cloudbreak, it’s fucking perfect, and some idiot who barely got a 400 on his SAT writing is not going to do you any favors. I’m just going to tell you of the stuff that’s fun to hear about.

It was the second or third night there, we had just got done with another all day surf mission. I have a shit-eating smile on my face that you could not remove even if you wanted to. I walk up to Sharron who is sitting at the bar with a few other guests who are talking and drinking. She appears to be a little tipsy. I think good for her she’s having fun and is cool about me surfing all day. This is epic.

I try to strike up a conversation. She shoots it down quickly. I shrug it offand say that I’m getting food and ask if she would like any. She declines so I go get my food and eat to replenish my body. I go back over again and she appears not happy at all, so I try to keep the conversation light and happy to make her smile. She’s pissed.

I ask what she is mad about and she starts going on a tirade. Yelling at me and telling me how I suck, which I probably deserve. I try to ask what I can do to make it up to her and she just dismisses me as a piece of shit. I know there is no rationalizing with an angry drunk woman so I decide to go back to the bure to avoid a scene. The next morning, I decide to sleep in and miss the six am boat so I can talk to her and try to make amends. I wake up and find her on the beach collecting shells. I approach her and sit in the sand.

Me: “So last night you kind of snapped on me, and I would like to know what the problem is so we can fix it and have a fun time.”
Sharron: “This is just not how I thought this was going to go, whatever, it’s my own fault.”
Me: “How did you think it was going to go?”
Sharron: “I don’t know but this was not how I thought and it just seems like you’re unappreciative.”
Me: “I’m super appreciative so thank you, but just coming from my point of view, I’m at the best wave in the world and it’s pumping. I don’t know if you wanted me to stay on the beach all day and collect shells, but that’s not how I work. I love surfing more than anything.”
Sharron: “No it’s fine. Just use this opportunity and have fun.”

So that is exactly what I did. I went and traded off on head-high lefts with Balaram at restaurants for the rest of the morning. The rest of the trip we were like roommates. We’d see each other and exchange pleasantries but that was the extent of it.

It’s the last day of the trip. I get packed up and say goodbye to all the awesome staff and new friends I made while on my week in paradise and vow to them I’ll be back. That crazy swell was on the way (the one Aaron Gold almost drowned and Damo and Dane G. got the sickest lefts ever on) so the island was buzzing to get ready.

They sent us to another resort on the mainland to chill by the pool for the day and buy ten-dollar beers. I took that time to nap, use the free WiFi to cure my social media withdrawals and text my friends back at home. Sharron got up and went to get a wine. This made me nervous because she’s not a fun drunk and gets angry. Seeing as we had an eleven-hour flight coming up I just do whatever I can to make her happy.

We leave the resort and she is still in high spirits. I think that this is going to be fine. We’ll get on the plane and she’ll pass out and I can alternate sleeping with the Fiji Airways movie selection. Our bags are checked. One of her new friends tells her that she is going to give her an Ambein and I’m smiling because in my mind I’ve crossed the finish line.

Then we get to security. They want her to throw away her special sunscreen, which she is not getting rid of. It turns into a screaming match between her and the airport security. I start stepping away from the situation, no cavity search for me. She tells me to go ahead, so I did and I go to waiting area. She eventually makes it through and goes straight to the bar. She is sitting with her island drinking partner and they start going to town on some white wine.

I see my situation deteriorate before my eyes and use the excuse that I want to walk around before sitting for eleven hours on the  flight and leave the scene. I run into my friend Justin who was also in Fiji but stayed on the mainland. We start trading stories of our sessions and funny parts of our trips. They start boarding the flight so I grab Sharron to go wait in line. She looks a tipsy and decides to start up a fun conversation about one of the cute blonde girls on the island that was hanging out with our crew.

Sharron: “You like Becca more than me don’t you?”
Me: “What are you talking about? She was just hanging out with our crew.”
Sharron: “You just like young stupid, naïve girls. You wouldn’t know a good woman if you saw one.”
Me: “Can we please not do this?”
Sharron: “We can do whatever I want because I paid for all of this”
Me: “Ok, well I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m sorry.”
Sharron: “You don’t have to say you’re sorry, just know that this is the problem with your generation. You guys don’t appreciate things and don’t know when to fight for a good thing when you see it. Go fuck yourself.”

Thirty minutes later, I get on the plane and sit next to her.

Sharron: “Why did you walk away from me?”
Me: “I’m not going to stand in public and get berated. I figured walking away was the best thing to do.”
Sharron: “Well, listen, you need to know that you need to grow the fuck up and learn that you can’t just be easygoing and carefree through your life like you are now”
Me: “Ok, thanks for the life tip”
Sharron: ”You know what, FUCK YOU! Just go fuck yourself!”
Me: “Chill out there’s kids on the plane, you need to relax.”
Sharron: “Don’t tell me what to do, FUCK YOU!”
Me: “Hey shut up, this is not the place to do this.”
Sharron: “FUCK YOU don’t tell me to shut up.”

At that point I plugged my headphones in and picked a movie and stared straight ahead as she continued to scream obscenities in my ear for another couple of minutes. I told myself to stare straight ahead and hope for her to hit me so I could be relocated or get her kicked off the flight, which was the path we were on until one of the fathers who was also on the island yelled across the plane for her to chill out. She eventually simmered down into a sleep. I went to ask my buddy Justin if he could give me a ride back to my house and he said he would do whatever he could do to help me get out of that situation.

The flight lands and I’m still not looking in her direction or acknowledging her sitting next to me. I turn my phone back on, saw that I had wireless data again, plugged in my head phones, open Spotify, and turn up my favorite Mastodon album as loud as it can go.

I wait for my boardbag and brace for a final interaction with her, seeing as she put a small bag in there. While waiting I am congratulated by random passengers for my maturity in the situation and it makes me want to thank every crazy girl I’ve ever dealt with for preparing me for that encounter. My bag arrives. I pull her bag out and give it to her. That is the end of our interactions.

And that is how I scored a trip to the best place in the world. And if I could do it again I would. I would do the same trip with an even crazier broad if it came up again. I wish I could’ve made it so she had more fun, but I’m 25 and never have had a real girlfriend so I’m kind of a rookie when it comes to this kind of stuff.

Hopefully she has more fun with the next guy she told me she was bringing.

(Editor’s note: This story first appeared in the print edition of a once-popular-ish magazine called Surfing that operated between, 1964 and 2017.)