Familiar talks are part of family rituals

On the first day of our annual Beach Week vacation, my family always has the same conversation.

It starts as soon as someone — a niece or a nephew, usually — notices something big and black half-submerged out there on the watery horizon.

"Look! It's a whale!"

That's our cue to gather around, squint into the sun and point.

"Do you guys see it?"

"Over there, right?"

"Yup."

So then we all stand on the shore and wait for the whale to do whale stuff — swim on its back, splash water with its flippers, leap out of the ocean, destroy seafaring vessels, swallow Pinocchio whole, bite off Captain Ahab's leg.

You know.

That kind of stuff.

Only it doesn't. It just sits there. And sits there. And sits there some more with the water sloshing around it and the gulls screaming overhead.

Finally, someone — usually my mom or a sister-in-law — goes, "Umm … are we sure that's really a whale?"

Everybody thinks about this for a minute.

"It sure looks like a whale …" (We want it to be a whale, because COME ON. How cool would it be to say you were just standing there on the beach, minding your own business when suddenly a whale showed up?)

"But it doesn't act like a whale …"

We think about this some more, until somebody — one of my brothers or maybe my husband — says, "Actually, I think it's just a big rock."

And then we all go OH YEAH. IT'S THAT BIG ROCK THAT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE A WHALE! DUDE!

WE HAVE THIS CONVERSATION EVERY YEAR, BECAUSE WE ARE THE STUPIDEST PEOPLE ALIVE, NOT COUNTING THAT DOPE WHO CHEATED ON SANDRA BULLOCK.

And then we vow we won't get fooled again next year because it's embarrassing to be tricked by rocks.

And then we go into the beach house to make hot dogs for dinner.

Anyway.

Our communal vow must have finally taken, because for the first time in more than 25 years, we didn't have the whale conversation last week at the beach.