This weekend my husband and daughters, their friend and I drove down the shore to the Manasquan River near Point Pleasant beach. When you’re from New Jersey (and probably parts of PA), you say “down the shore” not “down to the shore”. It’s a dead giveaway for those in-the-know and those visiting from out of town. We all have these geographical talismans that we dandle in front of anyone on the outside. Even though only one of us ever cares in the conversation. Like when my family moved to Long Island when I was 10 and I learned that you go “on” Long Island. You don’t go “in” it. This feels very obvious. (Aren’t we “on” everywhere?) It’s not. It’s a Long Island thing. And if you’re not from there, you say “in” and could care less that you’re wrong. And probably can’t believe we’re still talking about any of this.

So we drove down the shore because our incredibly wonderful, generous friends have a boat and invite us to join them on it every summer. I could fill the entire Manasquan River will the knowledge I don’t posses about boats. I am a grateful passenger, but pretty much a useless one unless usefulness sounds like, “Sure, I’ll have another beer. No, that one.” I’m good at passing out lunches and towels and sunscreen and saying “thank you” when my every possible need is met. But my worthiness pretty much stops there. My friends who own their boat love their boat. And they are so good at owning and loving and sharing it. I’m good at letting them. I could have coined the phrase “having a friend with a boat is better than owning a boat.” You get it. I fill my time in awe of the landscape and the breeze and the expanse of space and feeling of summertime and the lengths our hosts go to in order to make such an effort look so effortless. And I’d like to submit this paragraph on record as my ongoing hope to be invited in perpetuity.

The less than 50 mile drive from our house to the marina ended up taking us almost 2 hours, which is annoying but totally expected during a summer weekend in New Jersey. Down the shore is a place we all want to be. If we could parcel out our arrivals and departures a bit more, we might all be better off. In any case, we were locked in with thousands of our closest neighbors on the Garden State Parkway and only halfway into the two hour ride when my daughters and their friend announced that they were bored. To their credit, it was a full hour before this familiar complaint began. And even though they were all holding cell phones, I was secretly happy that they were bored and not happy to silently tap away for another 60 minutes.

“We could play the alphabet game!” I offered, looking over my shoulder. Their eye rolls hit me like a ton of bricks before I could finish the word “game”. “How about the license plate game?” My husband said. “UUUGGGGGHHHH, I hate the license plate game,” my daughter moaned. “Let’s play the bird game!” my other daughter said. And before their friend could ask whatintheworld the “bird game” is, they were shouting. “One! TWO!” and pointing out the window at two birds that flew out of the trees on the left side of the highway and across the road to the right.

The “Bird Game” (trademark pending) is a car game that our daughters came up with who knows when. The rules are very simple. Count the birds you see. Claim them as your own before anyone else. Find more birds than anyone playing along.

That’s pretty much it.

Once you get your eyes on a bird, you have to shout the next consecutive number you are tallying before another passenger in the car spots it. There are occasional ties, shouting matches, and physical altercations. But mostly it’s shouting numbers, pointing out the window and coming up with alternative rules like “five points for a dead one” like my husband contributed this weekend.

I could recount the rest of the actual game for you, but I think the highlight is that it went on for FORTY FIVE MINUTES and they never tired of it. In fact, their enthusiasm grew. They were laughing and competing and shouting in a way that I could never properly describe with words. I myself was laughing out loud at the absurd wonderfulness of what was happening behind me at least three times. My husband and I exchanged glances in between his attempt to join in the game. Far too late. The girls were locked in a heated battle at 43, 46, and 48 when he shouted “ONE!” Okay, I laughed out loud a fourth time.

Final tally was 79, 79 and 68. No one even cared that there was a tie as we pulled into the marina. It was then that I realized how quickly that last hour went for all of us.

Boredom. It takes a little while, but it eventually delivers. If you let it.