‘Surf’s Up’ Cry Can Get a Woman’s Dander Up

G etting boys to open doors and return library books for us is one thing, but expecting them to miss good surf is another.

It’s Gidget’s lament. I usually hear a version of it from my girlfriend about 6 a.m. every morning the surf is good.

My refrain: “Sorry babe, surf’s up, just like it says on the T-shirt I bought you.” Then in my best Andrew Dice Clay, I add: “Can you whip up a few blueberry pancakes while I’m gone? I’ll be real hungry when I get back. Thanks. See ya.”

The door slams.

I don’t know whether the husbands and boyfriends of women surfers endure the same--or worse--but the wives and girlfriends of my surfing friends have gritted their teeth many a time. They have faced deadly sea snakes in Fiji and endured barrages of bottle rockets and occasional cherry bombs tossed under their cots in Baja California.

They have willingly submitted to light-years of boredom, waiting on countless bluffs and beaches. When they complain, they hear the retort, “Ya didn’t have to sit there. You coulda watched me, you know.”

“I did,” is the usual answer. “You just soaked.”

Vacation, they soon learn, is a word that has surfing in front of it. Like Sherpas, they have dutifully toted surfboards through Paris on the way to the surf of Biarritz. No time for the Left Bank. Forget the romantic open-air cafes.

“Caribbean cruise?” she says. How about a powerboat ride to Todos Santos off Baja, I reply. I’ll throw in a clam cocktail from a street vendor in Ensenada. I’ll pay.

Spain? Madrid is definitely out. We’re going to Mundaca. New York? The only thing that breaks there is my patience.

She says she’d rather take an SST somewhere. How about a DC-3 to Puerto Escondido, better known as the Mexican Pipeline? So what if the last DC-3, a propeller plane, was built about 45 years ago, and that the Mexican passengers clap when it lands?

Spouses and companions get something out of all this world travel, though--the ability to recognize good surf, a valuable asset. If you live at the beach, as I do, this is particularly handy when you are not home but want to know how the waves are.

“Hi, hon. Well. . . . “

“The swell’s out of the southwest running four to five feet at 10- to 15-second intervals,” she says. “A little mushy, but there are fast, workable sections on the inside. Shape is fair to good. Occasional overhead sets at 56th Street. A little crowded but not bad.”

What more could a surfer possibly want?

Perhaps the incredible tolerance of other surf widows who uncomplainingly missed Dodger and Angel games or other events to attend the Op Pro in Huntington Beach last week or who once a week forfeit the television remote control when ESPN shows surf specials.

But that doesn’t compare to one spouse who says her favorite thing to put up with is the wet suit that lives and grows fungi in the bathroom shower. “It smells good, too,” she says. Not to mention the fact that it bares a slight resemblance to the costume worn by the creature in “Swamp Thing.”

Most suffer through this in silence and, in time, simply resign themselves to knowing that they come second. But don’t think that hasn’t caused an occasional cleanup set of guilt. To handle it, surfers I know have come up with “GM”--shorthand for girlfriend maintenance, that is, spending quality time on their romantic entanglements.

After surfing four or five hours a day for five days straight, “GM” usually sets in. For the sake of domestic tranquillity, we make time for movies, breakfasts, dinners before sunset, outings to the art museum and shopping at Newport Center.

When friends call wanting to go surfing, the self-sacrifice is evident in the words, “Sorry, guys, I’ve got to spend time with the girlfriend.”

Then there are the little things that say we’re thinking of them. During a surf trip I made last year without my girlfriend, I bought her a tank top. Silk-screened on the front is a guy who looks hypnotized. Next to him, a woman has the look of disgust on her face.

“Surfing, again!” she says.