It should be easy: Walk out the corners, slide on the canopy, then raise the legs. It’s a two-man job, but a three-part process. It’s … the beach tent.

Actually, that part’s easy. It’s what comes next that’s the challenge: keeping it anchored – in sand. Stuff that’s only slightly heavier than hair. The metal stakes you anchor it down with are solid enough, but driving metal into what feels like a bowl full of sugar doesn’t exactly breed confidence in your structure.

So you try to find something to hold the stakes in. You need a heavy structure, and you’ll have to use what you’ve got. Let’s see – seashells, seaweed and driftwood. Where’s a beached whale when you need one?

Going through the beach bag you’ve got flip-flops, towels, sunscreen and People magazine. Collectively, it’s almost a pound. You wish you had your Vanity Fair. Or the phone book.

As folks come over to hang out, you invite them to take a seat next to one of the four legs. And just grab hold of it, since they’re just sitting there. If you all put your stuff in the middle, you can take turns getting up to reapply lip balm. And look up phone numbers to make crank calls.

Thankfully, there’s always a family who decides to set up their tent, right in front of your tent. Which normally is a bummer, but in this case, is inspiring, as they dig deep holes for each leg, anchor the feet deep in the hard sand, then fill and pack the holes. Brilliant.

Then you steal their idea, bury your tent legs, and take a much-needed walk. Only to get caught in a downpour of rain and wind. And as you’re racing back down the beach, you see something flying in the distance that looks like a space ship wearing a blue hat. And you realize it’s your tent, as it crashes into the beach, and begins doing somersaults into the ocean, where it finally gets lodged in the surf.

And your problem isn’t that you don’t have a tent anymore. Your problem is, what in the world are you going to do with it? It’s no longer an easily collapsible, packable, sporting good. It’s more like a wrecked Volkswagen.

But nothing a power tool can’t dismantle over several hours. And your house rental company is usually cooperative in providing seven trash cans. So you lost the day. You also lost six pounds due to hard labor and the fact that you missed lunch.

Good thing the phone book’s intact. So you can rent an umbrella.

tracyobserver@yahoo.com