Summary

Despite his wishes to refuse dinner and thus remain morally aloof in their argument, he’s too hungry to refuse and convinces himself eating the food isn’t giving in, and he must remember only the sand is his enemy. He eats under the umbrella, and then she uses a piece of plastic over her head to keep the sand from falling in her meal, appearing like an insect. After she cleans the dishes she climbs up to the roof to begin clearing sand from the ceiling. He attempts to convince her of the futility of her labors by telling a story (most likely made-up to prove his point) of a miserable dog he once had, which he tried to help one summer by cutting its fur. When he clipped off the first tuft of fur, it grabbed the fur in its mouth and ran...