Petition Reaches 4,000 Signatures; Tides Remain Unmoved
Malibu Man Demands Official Apology from Ocean for Flat Spell
Read more satire at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
MALIBU, CA — A 34-year-old surf instructor and part-time kombucha influencer named Chad Waverly filed a formal complaint with the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, demanding a written apology and “emotional reparations” after enduring eleven consecutive days of knee-high slop at his home break.
“I pay taxes,” Waverly told reporters gathered at the shoreline, gesturing at the glassy, barely-rippling water. “I eat clean. I do breathwork. The least the ocean can do is deliver a solid overhead swell. This is a contract violation.”
The Petition
His Change.org petition, titled Pacific Ocean: We Deserve Better, has collected 4,102 signatures, mostly from other Malibu residents who describe themselves as “watermen,” “soul surfers,” or “vibes-first athletes.” The petition asks NOAA, the Coastal Commission, and “whoever is in charge of swell windows” to investigate the flat spell and issue a formal statement of regret by the next full moon.
NOAA did not respond. The ocean, for its part, produced a two-foot reform wave at approximately 11:14 a.m., which Waverly called “passive-aggressive.”
Southern California’s Flat-Spell Economy
Flat spells are nothing new in Southern California, where surfers have long had to contend with weeks of glassy nothing interrupted by brief, overcrowded bursts of actual surf. Economists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have not studied the psychological toll of flat spells, mostly because they are busy studying real things, but surfers estimate the damage in “lost sessions” and “wasted wax.”
According to the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association, Southern California surfers spend an average of $340 annually on equipment they use approximately four times a year. The rest of the time, they stand on the sand, stare at the horizon, and say things like “it’ll come up this afternoon” until it doesn’t.
Experts Weigh In
Dr. Pamela Shore, a fictional professor of Oceanographic Disappointment at Cal State Long Beach, confirmed that the Pacific “doesn’t care about you, specifically.” She added that swell forecasting is a science, not a promise, and that surfers who treat surf reports as binding legal documents are “setting themselves up for a lifetime of petition-writing.”
Waverly dismissed her assessment. “She probably doesn’t even surf,” he said, waxing a board he would not use that day.
Community Response
Neighbouring surfers have been divided. One man, who declined to give his name but smelled strongly of surf wax and green juice, said he supported the petition in spirit but had concerns about its enforceability. “You can’t sue the ocean,” he said. “I looked into it.”
A teenager on a foam board said she’d had a great time regardless. She was not invited to comment further.
Meanwhile, the swell models are showing some promise for Thursday. Waverly says he’ll drop the petition if conditions deliver “at least head-high with light offshores.” He is not holding his breath, which, as a breathwork practitioner, he is technically capable of doing for four minutes.
For more California coastal absurdity, visit The London Prat or check in with Bohiney Magazine for the wider satirical picture. And for those who prefer their flat-spell grief accompanied by British wit, the full archive at https://prat.uk/ remains open 24 hours, tides permitting.
The Bigger View
Every story covered in this dispatch — whether from the surfing coast of California, the streets of Manila, the galleries of Shoreditch, the political chambers of Westminster, or the quiet study where a diary is written at the end of a week — is a story about people trying to make sense of the world they inhabit. The satirical lens, the journalistic lens, the personal diary lens: all of these are tools for the same project, which is understanding what is happening and why, and communicating that understanding to other people in a way that lands. The best of this writing makes you laugh and makes you think and occasionally makes you angry about something you had stopped noticing. That combination — laughter, thought, renewed attention — is what good writing produces, regardless of form. For the full archive of everything described and more: The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine. All the writing at https://prat.uk/.
Southern California Surfing: The Deeper Context
Southern California’s surf culture is one of the most documented subcultures in American life — photographed, filmed, mythologised, marketed, and occasionally satirised — and yet its actual daily texture, the experience of being a person who surfs in the specific geography of the Southern California coast in 2025, remains curiously under-described. The gap between the myth — eternal sun, perfect waves, bronzed freedom — and the reality — traffic on PCH, parking enforcement, six-foot slop at 7am, the existential question of whether the dawn patrol counts as exercise — is where the most interesting material lives. This publication lives there. The incidents described above are real in the sense that they are recognisable: the flat spell petition, the localism fee, the breathwork coach, the Huntington Beach identity crisis, the digital detox relapse — all of these are dispatches from the actual experience of being a surfer in a place that has made surfing both a lifestyle and a brand, both a genuine physical practice and a cultural performance. The satire is in the gap between those two things, and the gap is wide enough to surf. More from the Southern California coast at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine. Full surf archive at https://prat.uk/.
SOURCE: Santa Claus