I’m not sure if you know this or not, but I’m sort of an inside-type person. Sort of like a cat that has been kept indoors all of its life. We’ll look out of the window but we don’t really care about what’s going on out there. Instead, we’ll just find a comfortable location to sit down and spend the majority of our time there. In reality I’m just hiding from the sun. The sun has something against me, and tries to burn me whenever I go outside. If it can’t burn me then it tries to bake me. I think it can feel my resentment for it and it wants to get back at me.

Alas, against my instincts, I went to the beach this past weekend and got a wonderful (sarcasm) sunburn. I actually put sunscreen on the first day and managed to come away with a deep pink burn, not quite the full on red. But, day two put my skin into a well-done state. Some kind of sunburn was clearly unavoidable, but I probably shouldn’t have fallen asleep in the sun. The sun managed to creep in between my hair strands and burn my scalp and eyebrows. I mishandled my mostly Irish bloodline.

The sunburn I received emitted a vibrant red, both literally and metaphorically as it caused a searing, throbbing pain to shoot through areas of my scorched skin. I ended up sleeping from 5pm Monday till Tuesday afternoon because of this. Although, I may have been able to do that without a sunburn (we'll just pretend it was the sunburn's fault).

Possibly my favorite part is the tan lines on my feet, because I never took off my flip-flops. Not many people are proud of their tan lines; at least you can usually cover them up. I’m not going so far as to wear socks and shoes, but I might be hesitant to take off my flip-flops in the near future, as the skin underneath the strap is quite Celtic when compared to the surrounding red.

Today, my face is peeling and the skin underneath appears to also be sunburned. So, basically, I’m going to end up peeling twice. Burning the outer layer apparently wasn’t enough for the sun; it had to go all multi-layer and take its grudge against me way too far.

At least the worst of it is over. Peeling doesn’t really hurt, aside from the areas where there is more sunburn underneath. All I have to do is hold out for another day or two and everything will be back to normal. I think the lesson here is to keep an eye out for that devious sun. Stay inside where there is no danger and it’s comfortable. And next time you order delivery, think about how this wonderful person has braved the outdoors in your stead as you decide on how much you want to tip him. It’s not about convenience, it’s about safety.