Fun in the Sun

Seeing how in the sun, my skin fares about as well as tissue paper would in a toaster oven, I am no stranger to sunburns. Sunburns that leave you with sleepless nights, tossing and turning as the soft fabric of your clothes become more like sandpaper, and with every inch you move you feel great and unimaginable agony. Sunburns that make you freeze and send goose bumps crawling across you, even though your skin is radiating enough heat to keep a small family warm. Yes, I know those sunburns and I know them well.

The first really bad sunburn I can remember was in 5th grade. Actually, it was my very first day of fifth grade. There I was, alone at the lunch table, my jean fabric "Blossom" hat framing my bright red freckled face, eating my turkey sandwich and cheese crackers all alone. And this sunburn was bad, believe me. I had spent the entire day before at the beach, imagining how great my tan would look as I walked into school on that first day of fifth grade-- the highest and coolest of all elementary grades. Little did I know my skin had other plans in mind. Plans that would leave me wishing I could skip lunch (and recess for that matter) and hide and cry in the bathroom. I mean the first day of a new class without the comfort of last year's friends is traumatic enough, but with the added stares from classmates ranging from shock to sympathy, it was all too much.

This latest sunburn is probably the most unique of all my sunburns, only existing in very special places. I went to the beach a few days ago and before I left my house I prepared. I must have used like half a bottle of SPF 15, taking time to make sure I it got everywhere.

Well, apparently it did NOT go everywhere. My thighs? They're ok. My shins, calves? They're good too. But it that tiny little region in between, the land of the knees, there was no sunscreen. Damnit! Oh, and right around my bikini line too, yeah that's a fun little spot, lemme tell ya. So now I have really, really red knees, and it's so, so painful. I put some Vaseline on them, but now I just have really, really red greasy knees and it's not much better.

At least it was only my knees, because if this burn had been everywhere, I would have been cooked for sure. And I have to say, I don't really think this look is so attractive...