As far as we can tell, summertime beach trips are just fraught with contradictory compulsions. For instance: you want to enjoy the sun, but you don’t want skin cancer. Likewise, you want to swim in the salt water, but then you’re all sticky and salty and won’t really feel comfortable until you shower. And then there’s sand, which is nice to sit on, so long as you’re not bringing a beach-worth of it home with you in pockets, bags, underwear, whathaveyous. Well, get ready for another annoying beach problem.

The New York Times just published the results of a study that will appear in The American Journal of Epidemiology, which found that most beach sand is actually full of really gross stuff (feces, basically), and that being buried in sand isn’t all that different from leaping into a septic tank (sorry!). Pebble beaches, presumably, are less likely to give you some sort of infection, but next time your friends try to bury you up to your neck in sand, just walk away. To help illustrate what we’re talking about, we’ve rounded up images of 20 Things Buried in Sand.

Buried Graveyard

Buried U.S.S. Enterprise

Buried Construction Worker

Buried SUV

Buried Bikini Surfer

Buried Statue

Buried Mr. Potato-head

Buried Octopus

Buried Merman

Buried Little Dog

Buried Big Dog

Buried Cat

Buried Kids

Buried Drunk

Buried Gun (at Utah Beach)

Buried Fighter Jet

Buried Businessman

Buried… Boy? Headless Boy?

Buried House

Buried Lighthouse