Be smart, wear sunscreen
It's painful, completely avoidable and may eventually lead to my demise, but for some reason, every year I voluntarily bask in the glory of the summer sun and reap the flaming red punishment.
Sunburns come very easy to me, like physics for Einstein or poetry for Shakespeare, all I have to do outside on a hot sunny day and within minutes I can feel the heat on my nose, ears and arms, but I persevere and shrug off the need for sunscreen.
“I don't need it,” I say to anyone who offers me Coppertone. “I'm getting a base.”
Unfortunately for my skin, I am from English/Irish/Scottish decent, which translates to: I am pale and forever meant to be that way. I'd like to think if I were an olive-skinned Italian I would have a dark hue well into the winter months, while laughing at my fair-skinned friends for lathering up the sun block when the UV hits nine.
I remember the agony as a kid, coming home from a day at the beach, only to find my shoulders gradually turning to darker shades of pink as the night progressed. The worst was when I was given the freedom to lather on my own sunscreen. Vertical streaks would mark my arms where I missed with the lotion.
Then there was the time I went to Cuba for a week in March. My skin hadn't seen sunlight for seven months, yet I still felt like I needed to get a base. No sunscreen (I don't even think I took any with me on the trip), not a cloud in the sky and temperatures soaring to 40 degrees, makes a mean recipe for sunstroke. Nothing like paying a thousand dollars to lay on your stomach in a hotel room with first degree burns on your back, while friends occasionally stopped in to bring me fresh ice packs.
I even got burned when I faked it for my high school prom. Two weeks before the big night I visited a tanning bed for the first time. I lied to the attendant by telling her I tan “really easily” and she stuck me in that wretched thing for 20 minutes. Who knew tanning beds were like little sun-filled vessels, just waiting to burn my skin to a crisp. I felt like I was in a toaster oven. Needless to say I never went back and was pale on prom night.
After all those years of pain, peeling and pink skin you would think I had learned my lesson by now. But on the first Saturday of sunshine this summer I was first one outside, not a drop of sunscreen in sight, and yet again I paid the price.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
Sunburns come very easy to me, like physics for Einstein or poetry for Shakespeare, all I have to do outside on a hot sunny day and within minutes I can feel the heat on my nose, ears and arms, but I persevere and shrug off the need for sunscreen.
“I don't need it,” I say to anyone who offers me Coppertone. “I'm getting a base.”
Unfortunately for my skin, I am from English/Irish/Scottish decent, which translates to: I am pale and forever meant to be that way. I'd like to think if I were an olive-skinned Italian I would have a dark hue well into the winter months, while laughing at my fair-skinned friends for lathering up the sun block when the UV hits nine.
I remember the agony as a kid, coming home from a day at the beach, only to find my shoulders gradually turning to darker shades of pink as the night progressed. The worst was when I was given the freedom to lather on my own sunscreen. Vertical streaks would mark my arms where I missed with the lotion.
Then there was the time I went to Cuba for a week in March. My skin hadn't seen sunlight for seven months, yet I still felt like I needed to get a base. No sunscreen (I don't even think I took any with me on the trip), not a cloud in the sky and temperatures soaring to 40 degrees, makes a mean recipe for sunstroke. Nothing like paying a thousand dollars to lay on your stomach in a hotel room with first degree burns on your back, while friends occasionally stopped in to bring me fresh ice packs.
I even got burned when I faked it for my high school prom. Two weeks before the big night I visited a tanning bed for the first time. I lied to the attendant by telling her I tan “really easily” and she stuck me in that wretched thing for 20 minutes. Who knew tanning beds were like little sun-filled vessels, just waiting to burn my skin to a crisp. I felt like I was in a toaster oven. Needless to say I never went back and was pale on prom night.
After all those years of pain, peeling and pink skin you would think I had learned my lesson by now. But on the first Saturday of sunshine this summer I was first one outside, not a drop of sunscreen in sight, and yet again I paid the price.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
