The true meaning of Memorial Day is never lost on me — that freedom comes with a price, and that many brave men and women proudly served this wonderful country.
But there’s always a second lesson I wish was as easily understood — that the sun is a giant ball of scalding hot gas and it will fry you like a paper-thin sliver of bacon.
So as last weekend’s Memorial Day also marks the semi-official start of sun-scorching season, I thought I would share a few tips on how to ensure your summertime sunburn horror stories are something your friends will talk about for weeks:
• Make sure when you’re spraying on sunscreen that you do it haphazardly. Just spritz it on like cologne. A little here, a little there. Miss whole sections of your body. This is what I did, and it explains why my shoulders are perfectly fine, but my sides are the color of a fire truck. There’s nothing more ridiculous — and uncomfortable — than a sunburn on your mid-section.
• Always turn to the family member or friend who is known as the jokester to help apply sunscreen. This is a great way to make sure that something lewd and obnoxious is drawn or spelled out on your back. The best part is it will be “tanned in” for weeks! And every time you go to the beach or pool, mothers will gasp, scream “You should be ashamed of yourself, dirty sun-burned man!” and cover up their children’s eyes with a towel.
• Important: When your wife says “supervise” the application of your child’s sunscreen, that does in fact mean actual “supervision.” Not merely asking, “So, did you put sunscreen on?” because you couldn’t be actually bothered thanks to the discovery of nacho chips in the beach bag. Of course the child is going to answer, “yep!” And it won’t be until later when your kid is candy apple red — except for two tiny white dots on her cheeks! — that you realize you’re about to be walking home from the beach.
• Don’t forget to loudly and brazenly boast that as a third generation Floridian with Cuban blood running through your veins that you are naturally immune to the sun’s harmful rays, and unlike fair-skinned mortals don’t need continuous re-application of sunscreen. Fair skin people just love this! This way they can make fun of you later on when they look nice and tan, and you look like you’ve been dropped in a vat of flaming French fry oil.
• Remember that no matter how awful and painful your sunburn looks, you must always claim that it “isn’t that bad.” Keep claiming this, even though you can’t roll over in bed, even though you need your wife to douse you in aloe and cocoa butter, and even though your child keeps asking if you’re having bacon for dinner because you smell like it.