So I’m back from another weekend in Ocean City…only the fourth time this summer…

Sitting on the beach on Saturday due to some wimpy waves I was able to watch one of the great human battles of all time: Big brother v. Little brother.

The family was sitting to our left, about three feet closer than us to the water. The sun was shining, the seagulls were gulling, and the two boys in the family were full of energy.

The older kid grabbed his paddle ball game and made the rounds of his family–dad, mom, grandma, what looked like an aunt and uncle. He asked each one if they would play with him, and despite his pleadings, each one declined to really even acknowledge his existence. Dad didn’t even look up from his book.

Meanwhile, the little brother had picked up the other paddle and was following big brother around. He asked again and again if he could play the paddle ball game. Seems like an easy solution to both of their problems.

But older brother wasn’t having any of it. He kept asking the rest of the family, brushing off the little brother as hastily as the uncle did to him.

“Why won’t you play with me!!!!” The little brother’s question goes unanswered.

Older brother hits the ball with his paddle, playing all by himself down by the ocean. Little brother sulks for about four seconds, staring off into the ocean contemplating his next move. He goes for making himself happy and forgetting about the older brother’s treatment.

So little brother goes to the great beach pasttime–digging a big hole. He grabs his plastic, little-brother-sized shovel and sets to work two feet in front of mom. Mom warns him about throwing sand up too high since the on-shore breeze would blow it on other beach-goers.

Little brother takes heed and settles into his project. He gets a nice two-foot hole going before the tide comes in. One wave brings water to his feet, alerting him to impending doom. He stops digging. Another wave comes in as he stares out into the sea, seemingly begging it to retreat to England, but to no avail. The wave pulverizes his hole, proving that despite what you may have learned on The Simpsons, holes have to natural enemies: Piles, and things that can move piles into holes, such as a wave.

Some kids would have been devastated, but not little brother. He simply tossed his now obsolete shovel behind mom’s chair, and ran in to join his former enemy, the ocean. He ran right past older brother, who was still hitting a ball to himself, miserable that nobody would play with him.