The older I get and the longer I live in the south (my whole life), the more you would think I have grown accustomed to these brutal summer temperatures. Like getting tattoos, I always assumed the more I got the less they would hurt. But as the old adage goes, “When you assume you make a bad mistake and end up getting tattooed in a tender location right before going to the beach and end up with a sunburn that makes it practically impossible to even sleep because the sheets feel like molten magma against your fevered skin.” I’m over it.
If the winter gets “as cold as a witch’s tit,” I’d hate to think what fantastical and anatomical location we’ve found ourselves embedded in these last couple of weeks. Somewhere lost in Rasputin’s nether-regions or pinned between the cheeks of a goblin’s backside probably. Bottom line, somewhere no one wants to be. Certainly not anyone who doesn’t have some kind of demonic fairytale fetish… And which I don’t intend to kink-shame– it is 2019 after all. I’m just saying remember to use protection. I recommend an SPF of 30 or higher.
In a way, I’m glad it gets this hot. You non-gingers finally get a taste of what many of us endure practically anytime the sun kisses our flesh. I’m simply not cut out for it, and I appreciate seeing people who don’t normally have to deal with sunblock suddenly having to slather themselves with that unpleasant body mayonnaise. It’s gross and to be honest, my skin likes most sunblock about as much as it likes the sun. We seemed locked into this three-way death match, where the sun and sunblock battle against each other, and I’m Gerry Rafferty—stuck in the middle. Like one of those cartoon fights where we turn into a big cloud of rolling smoke with light beams, tattooed limbs, and globs of Banana Boat sunscreen randomly flying out from the edges. I’m just waiting on Bugs Bunny to walk by and nonchalantly toss in a heaping ball of squamous cell carcinoma.
Now, maybe it got dark there for a second, but real talk, I lost my grandfather to skin cancer. And I’ve literally been to the ER for a sunburn before… So maybe the dark isn’t such a bad place for me personally. In this heat, under that oppressive and unrelenting Georgia sun, my body is essentially a genetic timebomb. Ticking away faster and faster with every piece of plastic thrown into the ocean and every can of hairspray emptied. It’s past time for redheads of the world to rise up against this war on nature, if for no other reason than our own self-interest! We’ve all seen the movies. You think I’m cut out for that post-apocalyptic desert wasteland? Everyone’s lips are super chapped and you never see anyone apply sunblock. And all that leather? I’m positively doomed! Doomed I say!