Don't Forget Your Suncream…
March 21st, 2007 by robin
I went skiing in France for a few days recently and the weather was the best I have experienced in 25 years. Crisp blue skies, excellent snow, small queues at the lifts and wonderful food.
On the third day I had a conference call with a client, so my companions headed off before me. At about 09.30 I headed off to the slopes, and as I got to the exit of the hotel, I remembered I had not put any suncream on my face, and that my back up tube was not in my jacket. Mmm, I thought to myself (the words which precede many avoidable mishaps).
As I stood in the lobby of the hotel, kitted up, and ready to go, I knew deep down, that if I didn’t get suncream on my face I ran a high risk of getting a little burnt. I should point out getting a little burnt was as it turns out the biggest understatement since Noah said “It looks like rain”. However, in about seven one thousandths of a second, I had convinced myself 'just this once', and I internally uttered the fateful words, “Ah it’ll be fine”. I even convinced myself this boost of UV would turn my complexion a matinee idol shade of nutty brown. Because of the wind and cold air temperatures, I didn’t feel a thing, so I never felt hot.
I met my friends at lunch and continued to soak up the rays. I forgot to borrow some suncream (well I didn’t forget, the truth was I felt fine) and continued as I had started. In fact I convinced myself that I probably didn’t need to use suncream ever again.
As a child my parents taught me never to point at someone who was different, so I never did, be it an enormous person, a facially disfigured person, a disabled child with callipers from polio, a homeless person; I was taught to respect the dignity of others, and I have done my very best to continue that essential lesson from childhood. Alas however I don’t think this current generation of young children have been taught it, as I became acutely aware that children were staring at me. Some pointed whilst nudging their parents to get their attention too.
I put it down to a combination of charisma and a perfect tan. Unfortunately reality has a habit of jumping up and biting us when we least expect it, in my case it came in the form of a mirror in the elevator in the hotel.
I was redder than a New England lobster at a clam bake. I had invented (single handedly) a new shade of red – ‘nuclear burn’. I was a livid shade of scarlet.
Well after sympathetic looks of condolences, I have in the past five days shed many layers of skin and look about 17 (OK, OK that bit’s not true), but it will be a few weeks before I stop looking like I am a 20 year alcoholic who is blushing after being the creator of an embarrassing incident.
The lesson always deal with facts, and not convenient opinions based of laziness, because that’s when we make bad choices.
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