It’s 11 p.m. — hours past what we’ve dubbed “Cape midnight” — and I’m sitting with my laptop atop what I will charitably term a bed.

It’s more a queen-sized piece of plywood with a few rusty springs underneath.

This is not an isolated incident: It is an incontrovertible truth that no matter how nice a vacation house is, the beds are going to suck.

My now in-laws invited me to join their family vacation on Cape Cod days after meeting me for the first time, and I don’t know if that says amazing things about me or big-yikes things about them, but that was in 2012.

And I’ll keep coming back, heinous beds notwithstanding, until I’ve fully worn out my welcome.

Must be somethin’ kinda special about it, huh?

Well, our annual trip is one steeped in wonderful traditions:
🐳 ordering takeout lobster bisque from the Chatham Squire (cocktails while we wait!)
🐳 invariably losing my mini-golf grudge match against my husband
🐳 strategically choosing our patches of sand, just beyond the lifeguards’ sight lines, for covert beach rosé consumption
🐳 scooting out for kidless breakfast at the Wee Packet with Mark’s brother and his wife

But things change, too.

I’ve watched my niece, who is about to start fifth grade, and nephew, heading into second, grow up through our years coming out here.

One year we were all just adults getting drunk and making up “Cape midnight” because we’d had too much wine to stay awake any longer.

Then they came along, and went from adorable potatoes to crying babies to [mildly profane adjective] toddlers to Actual Sentient Beings™ with strange, genius-kid brains far too big for their tiny bodies.

My niece — who I’ll call Pearl — voluntarily joined us at the beach today after sulking under a tent with her latest chapter book during yesterday’s excursion, mumbling pleas to leave when she deigned to look up.

I thought today might be another nose-in-a-book day, but she hauled right up to the water’s edge in her bright yellow Crocs and waded in.

I waded in, too.
Then I saw the crab 😬
Juuuuust scuttling across the sandy floor of Pleasant Bay, like there weren’t soft-fleshed killers splashing around their watery house.

I saw another one. Aaaaaand…
JesuschristtheywereeverywhereTHISISWHYIAMAPOOLPERSON 🛟🆘🛟🆘🛟🆘

But there were also kids everywhere. Mostly boys, wielding plastic nets and the impenetrable armor of kid fearlessness.

They had the tools, they had the talent…

And, they had a little plastic bucket full of crabs.

Pearl, lanky in their own brave armor, waltzed right up to one of the boys and asked if they could join in the crab hunt.

Minutes later, they were in it together, up to their waists in water and thick as thieves as they scanned the water for crustaceans to snare. Temporary besties. They didn’t even give it a thought.

That is such a singularly kid thing, man.
Or is it?

Maybe it’s just easier for kids. Maybe, because they haven’t yet honed their cynicism to a deadly point or begun to view everything as sus until proven otherwise.

Maybe, because they haven’t yet been stabbed in the back by a friend, betrayed by a lover, or screwed over by a business they thought they could trust.

But “game recognize game” is still a thing, right?
Your vibe attracts your [appropriative rhyming word]?
…right?

We grown folks have ways of finding our people.

But many of us have also been through enough to know that we’re just as likely to be the crab in this scenario than the kid with the net, and everything’s such a mess out there 
::gestures broadly:: that it’s hard to know who we can trust.

And this is why words matter.
Why we have to think deeply about what we want to say before even beginning to consider how to say it.

As marketers, we can’t just walk up to somebody and expect them to follow us into the water, especially if they’ve been bitten by a shark before. 🦈

The story you tell about your business can make all the difference…
🦀 Tell one laced with empathy and vision for an incredible future just on the other side of a problem, and you might just have yourself a beach buddy.
🦀 Tell one glamorizing the yacht life but shaming them for not ditching their dinghy sooner… Well, your net might as well have a hole, because your crab’s gettin’ away, bub.

Your words attract your herd.

Oh, by the way: I made you something! It’s a cute PDF featuring nine quick mental reframes around telling your brand’s story, called Do This, NOT That!

And one last thing: They threw the crabs back. It felt important to tell you that.