Here comes the sun! AIEEE!

This weekend was supposed to be beautiful outside, so Saturday morning I woke up early and headed down to the lakefront to enjoy the nice weather. I brought along a book I’ve been trying to finish for about the last month or so. The trip down to Lincoln Park was uneventful, but once I arrived I found myself surrounded by a horrible sight – there had been a mass beaching of pretty people up and down the entire length of the lakefront. It appeared that they had all come out to go swimming, as they were all in swimsuits, but instead of frolicking in the waves with the rest of their bretheren, they were lying motionless on the ground! Every 15 minutes or so it seemed like they would try to escape, but in their weakened condition all they were capable of was rolling over. So sad. I thought about trying to rally passersby to begin a rescue effort – having a bucket brigade started to keep their skin moist and prevent overheating. But then I thought “Who am I to argue with nature’s mystery?” so I let them stay where they were.

Knowing that I had a good couple hours of sun exposure coming up, I had prepped before coming out. I slathered on moisturizers with built-in sunscreen right after getting out of the shower, and had applied my trusty “SPF Infinity” on top of that in particularly vulnerable areas. Thusly prepared, I was able to spend almost 3 hours in direct sunlight, making up for any hidden Vitamin D deficiencies that I didn’t know about. That was good.

But what I didn’t realize was that apparently, the moisturizer I had used did not contain any sort of sunscreen, as I had believed. Mercifully, the additional sunscreen I applied to my head and arms protected those areas. My legs however, were not so lucky. And because I was sometimes lying on my side, and other times on by belly while reading there is no recognizable pattern to my sunburn. For example, as you can see in the picture, my left kneecap is sunburned while my right kneecap looks normal. Plus the pattern from my sandals now makes my feet look like billboards for the new X-Men movie. Hey 20th Century Fox, where's my ad money?!

Sheesh. I can't even suburn symetrically. Thank goodness I wear pants at work.

Comments

KC said…
Ouch! Good thing that you don't wear shorts to work, huh?
J.Po said…
You, my friend, were not built for the sun. I'm sorry to hear of your fatal mistake. In Vegas last month, I burned my belly to a crisp and it was NOT FUN. The worst part was when it got all itchy and scaley. I envy you not.
grrrbear said…
Actually, it never got much worse than what you see on the pictures. For some reason my legs are much harder to sunburn than the rest of my body - I can't explain why, but I think that is my mutant power. Not that it would do much good in the battle vs. evil...

"Look! Up in the sky! It's SHORTS MAN! Whiter than a milk tsunami! More powerful than the itch you can't reach back behind your kneecap! Able to wear short pants all day in the sun with only a mild pinkness!"
Unknown said…
I'm awfully glad that I don't have to wear pants to work. It's boxer briefs in muted earth tones every day but casual Fridays for me.
Cheryl said…
You could use this uneven burning power for good by using sunscreen and stencils to spell out political messages. Or you could burn yourself a playboy bunny. (Do you remember that? People did that in the 80's.)