Yeah, yeah – you can probably see where this one’s going before I even get started…

So as you can probably discern from the lovingly flattering photo, yours truly got burned recently, and not so much in the investing in Internet stocks … on margin!-sort of way as the genius thought he was putting on an adequate quantity of sunscreen, but apparently wasn’t-method of getting oneself scorched.  Now I’m stuck for the next three weeks looking like a lobster on his way to his last supper.  Why does it always have to come to this???

Oh, that’s right – the lack of sunscreen! How quickly I forget … it’s almost hard to believe I live in Florida sometimes, isn’t it?

But you see, I guess that’s part of the problem because for the most part, I don’t really ever go “outside” – at least not during the summertime months down here!  It’s always 180 degrees out, with a humidity roughly equal to an Olympic-sized swimming pool worth of water for each man, woman, and child stupid enough to step out from behind the safety of their air conditioned cocoons – does any part of that sound appealing to you?! Besides, it’s three months out of the year – the other nine are beautiful, and none of them are filled with snow, unlike my previous northern abode, so in comparison I actually think laying low for ten weeks as opposed to ten months isn’t really all that bad of a deal…

Of course, just try selling that argument when people come to visit.

It’s like that old saying about how you never seem to do all of the neat things your town has to offer except for when people come to visit, however in this case instead of going to the wax museum or the local discothèque, we instead found ourselves going to the beach … at three in the afternoon … in the middle of summer, and while don’t get me wrong, I love me some beach, but at three in the afternoon in the dead of summer?  Not so much!

Believe it or not, though, that’s not even the worst of it.

Frankly, I was a little put off when I discovered later that evening just how badly I’d gotten burnt because while usually I scoff at the thought of slathering on sunscreen and feeling all gross and slimy for the rest of the afternoon when I’m out and about, this time I actually even succumbed to said sliminess and sprayed it on like a pro … or so I thought.  I then proceeded to frolic amongst the waves without a concern in the world … at least not with regards to getting singed by those harmful UV rays from our mother sun.

Sure, there was still an underlying concern about getting eaten by something so terrifying that it regularly gets its own week on the Discovery channel, but as far as I’m aware they don’t exactly make a spray for that, and even if there was some sort of Shark Repellant Bat Spray currently available on the market, that’s an entirely different column for another day…

So really, what’s a closet heliophobiac to do here with this chemically-flawed conundrum?  I get burned when I don’t put on sunscreen, and yet I also mysteriously get burned when I do put on sunscreen.  It doesn’t take a solar astronomer to figure out that something is afoot here and I intend to get to the bottom of this just as soon as … I can move more than three inches without my shoulders feeling like someone is slow-roasting them over an open fire.  Ow ow ow – good lord, does that hurt!  Whew…

You know, it might be a few weeks – you might want to check back with me later.