Sun smart until the chance arises to prove otherwise
WATCHED Planet of the Apes the other night. Actually only the start, and it was Under the Planet of the Apes, which seemed a bit silly so I went to bed.
As I switched off, marooned astronaut from the past, Charlton Heston, was riding a horse with one of the local female humans who, for reasons we can only guess at, he had chosen as his travelling companion.
What struck me was that – at the risk of coming across all Chris Gayle – they were both half starkers and Mr Heston in particular was already suffering the effects of too much sun.
Despite this, neither wore a hat, and the accumulated fabric from both their outfits would not have been sufficient to gift-wrap a frog.
You see, I’m savvy to sun protection, wear a hat, apply sunscreen and would no more sun myself than French kiss a randy gibbon.
That is, until I’m on holidays. Then it’s as if I’m some sort of cross between Alby Mangels and Tarzan; as if mentally my skin transforms from the silky, seethrough rice paper of the career office worker, into that on the bullet-proof, mud-caked shoulders of a Cape buffalo.
The pattern is the same every time: day one, snigger and point at the sunburnt Europeans, day two; get so fried the Europeans snigger and point at me on my way to the burns unit.
And it’s not like I haven’t experienced enough agony to encourage more caution.
On our honeymoon the allure of beach walking shirtless left me looking like an enormous mutant tomato. But it was not the worst. Many years earlier I had been stranded in Mexico, whiling away the days on the beach waiting for my replacement travel documents to arrive.
It was a long time ago, being broke left me few other options, sun awareness was only comparatively recent concept and I was a priceless dickhead.
One day, for reasons I suspect had to do with youthful exuberance combined with the effects of cheap cannabis and alcohol, in the midday heat I decided to go nude; it was deserted, life’s for living, why not?
Here’s why: Because while the shoulders, back, arms and legs of Australians of my era have been weathered by the sun since childhood, my arse really hadn’t.
In truth my butt cheeks had not seen sun since the odd outdoor nappy change during infancy some 30 years prior, hardly adequate preparation you’ll agree.
Long story short; even the brief exposure to the noon sun left my buttocks so burnt that I wished I had never been born; indeed, that humanity itself had never existed.
Victims of the inquisition’s auto de fe looked down from heaven and winced at the burns.
I had to lie face down for days and when I had to walk somewhere it was stiff-legged and groaning like Herman Munster receiving fellatio.
The multi-layered sheets of flesh that lifted from the affected area would have been more than enough to manufacture a wallet, which while serving as a traumatic reminder of my ordeal, would have nonetheless been a hell of a talking point: (“Is that acne on your wallet?”)
So you’d think this year would be different, gaining further inspiration from the need to set a good example for the kids, having already failed in that regard with drinking, swearing, hygiene, cyclists’ rights, honesty, religious tolerance, picking up after the dog, respect for diversity, and generally not swaggering around the place like a moody, half-pissed yowie, whining that nobody does nothing about nothing while in fact doing absolutely nothing in that regard myself.
And you’d be wrong, because once again I got cooked like a Frankfurt in hell, as if my skin had been used to slap out a grassfire, like the universe had used me to extinguish its cigar.
Next time, underneath the planet certainly seems a safer option.
Long story short; even the brief exposure to the noon sun left my buttocks so burnt that I wished I had never been born; indeed, that humanity itself had never existed.