Once burnt, never shy
Posted
July 13, 2008 at
4:01 pm by
Kymberly
There is a certain comfort to be taken in the knowledge that some things are probably never going to change.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence; the earth will continue to rotate around the sun, and I will not get even one iota smarter this summer over last.
Learned lesson. After three plus decades on this earth you would think that by now I would have learned just a little bit about sunscreen. You would be wrong. I have, however, recently learned quite a bit about aloe.
I sum it up thusly, on the first day God made the sun so the devil had no choice but to counter with sunburn.
For the record, I am much better at parenting then I am self-preservation.
Stupid mistake. Despite remembering to coat both children with a thick layer of sunblock, I still managed to believe it a fine idea to stand IN THE WATER under a blazing hot sun for more than four hours with nothing between me and the sun but my own stupidity. I know, just typing it I’m embarrassed all over again.
I honestly don’t know which hurt worse — the peeling or my pride.
What I really suffer from is a case of rampant optimism.
A little sun. Despite years of cause and effect training which would have trained even a gerbil to recognize “sun minus sunscreen = burn,” I continue to operate under the delusion that I, the whitest white girl in America — can get “just a little sun.” This is akin to believing you can get “just a little pregnant” or “just a little nuclear radiation exposure.”
I persist in this belief because in my teens I could — and did — tan.
Tanning goal. That was really my whole life goal back then. Study? Maybe. College? Yeah, whatever.
A nice golden copper toned glow — I’ll work on it day after day until I achieved my goal with only a backyard lawn chair, a couple hundred gallons of baby oil, and my ability to lie completely prostrate for hours at a time to guide me.
Brown baby. They also tell me I used to get “brown as a berry” as a baby. Apparently, I am supposed to take great solace in the fact that I was a real babe when I was FOUR.
Meanwhile back at the pool, well meaning friends tried to warn me. By late afternoon my back was starting to feel a wee bit warm and I thought about sunscreen for a nano-second, but my children blissfully sliding time and again down a waterslide and my need to be waiting at the bottom because, after all, how could I trust the no less than THREE lifeguards on duty, seemed the more pressing matter.
By the time we left the pool, my upper body was the approximate color of a ruby red grape. I radiated enough heat to toast a marshmallow and people just passing by clucked in sympathy and then, I don’t doubt, laughed uproariously when out of my earshot at how stupid some people can be.
Phase two. Now, a few days later, I am currently in phase two of the sunburn process, phase one being the getting burnt part.
Phase two is the back-slapping phase. In this phase people who have never shown even the slightest iota of interest in you previously, people who don’t even KNOW you, will suddenly be seized by the need to slap you on the back.
It’s as if there is a primordial siren call of seared skin. Seemingly unbidden they are moved to “slap!” you on the back with a hearty hail fellow well met even if they know not why.
As you cringe and slither to the floor in a heap of blinding red hot pain, they are left to state the obvious to soothe you, “little burnt huh?” “Little burnt huh?” is obviously code for “I hate you enormously and I wish to see you dead!,” that is the only possible explanation for this.
The only possible defense to back slapping is to make the universally recognized sunburn warning noise whereby you grit your teeth, pull back your lips, inhale briskly and spasm your body inward in the standing equivalent of the fetal position.
Sure, they’ll STILL slap you on the back, but with these motions you are slightly less likely to want to punch them. As if you could really lift your arms to take a swing anyway.
As the days have passed I have regained near normal movement in my upper limbs.
Shedding skin. I have also started to shed skin like a snake, lending whole new meaning to the phrase “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours!” My husband, lucky man that he is, gets to witness it all.
All I can say is that when it comes to reliving the sheer stupidity of the moment when I chose to eschew the necessity of sunscreen for the certainty of a not-so-slow burn, all I can say, is boy, was my face red.
Tags: children, Health, parent, spf, Sunburn, sunscreen, swimming, thirties |
10 Responses to “Once burnt, never shy”
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1. ambull said:
July 13, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
your article reminds me of my most recent sunburn i received at the beach 2 months ago!!!
OMG…i, too, used to tan like a hawaiian tropic model!!! now, i turn 30 and what the hell? i even used to use baby oil and not get the least bit burnt!
i laid on the beach in hilton head for no more than 2 hours the FIRST day of our week vacation and got blistered!!!
and, i agree…how is it, that EVERYONE grabs your arm, slaps your back or wants to give you a great big hug???
i, too, felt a little idiotic about the whole situation. my hubby TRIED to tell me to put on a little sunscreen! “nah, i’m good, i don’t really burn”…was my response…and, of course, i got the “i told you so” for the rest of the week!!! i didn’t lay out for one more day of that week
anywho…i peeled for an entire flippin MONTH!!! started with the face first, then the chest, arms, back, legs and lastly my stomach!!!
i learned my lesson to say the least!
good luck with your burn and just use LOTS of lotion!!! if it’s really bad, you should give a try to an oatmeal bath…that helps!!!
2. Stacey S_MOD said:
July 13, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
My heart goes out to you…I think we’ve all been there at least once in our lives. You should take a picture of yourself now to remind yourself later! LOL
3. Allison G. said:
July 13, 2008 @ 9:49 pm
My Dh got a burn so bad once, I had to devote an entire scrapbook page layout to it!
And just 3 weeks ago, he did the exact same thing you described! “What!? I was in the water. HOW did I get burned???”
I burned a little, too. But he blistered badly. It was gross. I told him he couldn’t sleep in our bed without a T-Shirt on, once he started to peel. YUK!
4. Grandma frm Ks. said:
July 13, 2008 @ 10:50 pm
Kymberly, Stacey has a great idea, Take a picture, a good close up, with great color, and put it where you will see it every time you want to go in the sun, Dang why do we tortyre our selves? but we do again and again, Hugs to you , oops! a light hug, oh heck, heres a cyber hug, it won’t hurt ya.
5. SHS said:
July 14, 2008 @ 11:16 am
I use to mix Hawaiian Tropic Oil with baby oil and iodine. Stupid, huh?
Here is a proven cure for sunburn…use white apple vinegar to take away the sting.
And NEVER put any kind of lotion on a burn. It keeps the heat in.
Sorry about your burn
6. Kymberly said:
July 14, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
—
Kindred spirits!
Photos taken. Check! My skin looks PURPLE in the photos.
I am an idiot.
7. ambull said:
July 14, 2008 @ 6:31 pm
SHS-
well, maybe that was my problem…LOL
i put so much lotion on, i was a greaseball! never heard that before…
good idea with the vinegar, i haven’t heard that either!
8. Rita said:
July 20, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
I’ve never been a sunbather, but I, too, neglect myself when I’m out and about, thinking that “a little sun” is a good thing. I haven’t had that kind of burn in a loong time. I just get the little v-neck flaming red, or some hot-pink tint on the back of my neck.
But, isn’t it funny how in this day, if you go around with a sunburn (something that isn’t easy to hide), people react like you’re driving drunk, or have some blow on your nose, or have crapped in church or something. It’s THAT taboo. I can’t even imagine what people would do if a KID has a sunburn… call CPS, take you to court and have you declared incompetent?
The thing that’s soooo ironic about it is that the ingredients in sunscreen are also carcinogenic (you can google that), so really and truly you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Unless you invest in outfitting your family in those sun-block suits.
9. GrandmafrmKs. said:
July 20, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
Oh yes Rita, a kid gets burnt, might as well beat the snot out of em’to, My little grand daughter 8 was here for two weeks, We went to the pool, (she was already burnt some) butshe and her sister 10 was at the opposite end from DIL and I, some women asked her if her grandma knew she was red, She said” umm she knows I’m burnt” the lady said “I can’t believe she would let you burn like that” little K said ” I did this at home, and thats why grandma said we have to stay at this end in the shade” The lady proceeded to run her mouth and say how stupid it was,
So needless to say I stayed a little longer than I had planned, waiting for her and her tribe of kids to leave, As she walked past, I stood up and said” maybe next time you have a gripe about some one elses child, you should talk to the adult and not the child” (now it gets funny) she said maybe next time I’ll just call 911, so I offered her the use of my cell phone,
she said “WEll I never” and started to walk away, I go “from all those kids you have it’s more like you never quit” Yeah it was mean, but I just hate to see adults ask children things when there is an adult with them,
I praised K for the way she answered the lady nicely, (not what I really wanted to tell her at that moment tho) Oh yeah I burnt and blistered, the kids just got darker, lil brats LOL
10. Mary Beth said:
July 20, 2008 @ 6:49 pm
Grandma, that is weird that the lady would ask your granddaughter if her grandmother knew she was burned instead of asking her if her mom knew she was burned. Looks like it would be more of a reflection on the mom than the grandmother.
People do love to get in your business.
I have so many funny pool stories from our trips to FL. Some older ladies were sitting on the steps of a pool while my boys were racing underwater in the pool. The ladies were yelling at my boys to not splash!! I started laughing so hard and told the ladies that (1) the boys cant hear you, they are underwater and (2) if you don’t want to get wet, don’t sit on the steps of the pool! My friend took her girls to FL and put sunscreen on them beside the pool. They let it dry and then went to get in the pool where some ladies told her that you could not get in the pool with sunscreen on! Hello??? Crazy people. They must not have much going on in their own lives so they have to jump in and monitor everyone else’s lives, don’t you think? It is a personal thing to them somehow.