Day 28 of life in the slow lane with the turn signal on…
Well, another hot day in sunny Florida…can’t believe it’s February and I’m laying beside a pool getting burnt…just seems wrong on so many levels! Reminds me of the time when I was on a college break and decided to go to the beach with my sister, Martha, and our best friend, Susan. We lived in Panama City, Florida and since we had the whole week off, we planned to go to the beach and bask in the sun every day. We gloated that we were going to have tans everyone would envy when we went back to school! We hit the beach bright and early Monday morning and, after getting settled on our beach towels, quickly began to slather on baby oil from head to toe. The ads promised that this would ensure a dark, rich tan – fast. Since all of us had skin the color of egg shells and only six days to morph into bronze goddesses, we were most generous in its application. None of us thought to compare our situation to that of placing raw meat into a heated frying pan filled with hot oil…until Tuesday morning, that is.
I remember waking up – not because it was light outside – but because I turned over and immediately felt a sharp, stabbing pain run through my body. It was as if I was sleeping on a bed of nails that had been set ablaze! I went to the bathroom to see what was wrong and screamed as I looked in the mirror! The only piece of skin that was not beat red was where my bathing suit had been. To say I was “cooked” would be an understatement! I heard moans coming from the bedroom and realized that the other sun worshipers were also feeling the burn. The first challenge was getting dressed without any piece of clothing actually touching our skin. We realized this was an impossible task and decided to just put our bathing suits back on. The second challenge was trying to sit down without actually bending a body part or touching the couch. I remember hearing a lot of, “Owie, owie, owie, owie, owie!” as we continually tried, without success.
Sadly, going back to the beach to continue working on our tans was out of the question. However, we spent the rest of the week assuring each other that once the infrared glow wore off, we would be left with a beautiful shade of brown comparable to that of an island native. I wish I could say that were the case – and that spending every waking hour having to walk around the house seeing our less than perfectly shaped bodies overflowing in skin tight swim suits (can you say scarred for life?) and every night trying to sleep standing up, was worth the pain! Unfortunately, when the red faded, we were left with scaly, pealing skin even more pale than the shade we had started out with. Somehow, we had managed to get even whiter than white! That was 30 years ago and I wish I could say that Susan, Martha and I look back on that snapshot of our lives and laugh about it. Sadly, whenever we get together and that memory is recalled, we all grimace and change the subject. And, to this day, I don’t have the heart to boil or eat lobsters – just brings back too many agonizing memories of vanity gone wild.
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February 1st, 2012 at 9:30 pm
Oh Mary, that makes me laugh and recall what is now a funny story about my honeymoon to Maui and Kauai with my beloved. I’m part fish but my husband is less comfortable in the water so when we went snorkeling he used those long plastic noodles which is funny on so many levels!!! He also forgot to wear a shirt and by the end of the day he was FRIED! Okay, the sad (but funny) part is that he started getting sick in the water..I’m sure form the sun and just plain sea sickness so now he’s throwing up in the water. I swim over to rescue him but now there is the biggest pod of the most beautiful fish so I’m yelling “Honey, look at all this beautiful fish” as he is barfing into the water. So sad but yet so funny. We got onto the boat where is he now barfing off the back and yet more BEAUTIFUL FISH!! Thank God for these laughs to get us through the touger times in our lives!!!
February 2nd, 2012 at 4:52 pm
Hey, Donna! What a great story and THANKS for the laughs (sorry they were at David’s expense) – HAHA!