We all know as the months of June through August arrive and the summer-wear commercials start to roll in, it’s time to get wet and wild. Well, at least that’s what it aims to be. Living in South Florida and having the beach at my fingertips should be nothing but another “Baywatch” rerun. However, that doesn’t always seem to be the case.

Here in Florida it rains at least once a day, promptly around 2 p.m. right smack in the middle of your beach day. You’re left to either take your chances and see if it’ll blow over or pack up all of your things as fast as you can and make a run for it. The ocean is usually full of seaweed that makes you itch and startles you when you think some type of ocean wildlife keeps brushing up against your back, until you turn around and see it was just a big patch of good ole sea tangle. There’s also trash everywhere from the shoreline and into the water, mostly from our college kids who are down for the summer and here to party. Now I’m not going to sit here and put all of the blame on the college kids for endangering our marine life and releasing bacteria into the water. We all know it also comes from the families who forget to clean up after themselves and any other beach goers who find it way too difficult to pick up their garbage and release it into the nearest trash can, that’s a whole other article in itself though.

Despite the impeccable weather timing, prickling seaweed, and the mass littering, I’d say the hardest part of achieving your television worthy beach day, is getting all of your friends to cooperate. Despite the easygoing flow of summer, it has been proven difficult to get everyone on the same page at the same time. First off, you have your friends who like to sleep all day and party all night therefore causing you to miss “prime time” (the hours of 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. which are known for the perfect time to catch a tan). There are the friends who can’t seem to pull themselves away from Netflix for the day, therefore resulting in a last minute “I actually don’t think I can make today, sorry” text. We can’t forget about our workaholic friends who fill all the spots in their schedule where school use to be with countless hours of getting paid the minimum wage of $8.05. Finally, there’s always at least one friend who needs at least a two week notice before committing to a plan because they have a multitude of social events to attend to. All of these are valid reasons to not be able to have your cliché fun in the sun, but it does make it harder to seem like you’re having a summer for the books to all of your Instagram followers.

In the end, if you ever come across that rare day when it looks like it won’t rain until 4 p.m., the college kids have cleaned up after themselves for once, and every one of your friends were able to make it, you will feel nothing but euphoric. It may not be comparable to “Baywatch”, but it’ll be just enough to satisfy your summer supposition.