One of the things I always find amusing
about summer is the Lobster People.
No, these are not people with weird
deformities that causes them to resemble a delicious and expensive
sea crustacean.
These are the people who are
vacationing in our sunny climes and are as red as a stop sign from
too much outdoor merriment.
It helps make tourists easy to spot as
they look like tomatoes with legs.
Locals have either already gained a bit
of a tan, or they know enough to lather themselves in SPF 4,000
before going out.
But many of our tourists come from a
flat part of the country (I'm not mentioning any specific areas here)
where summer is typically a couple weeks in late July so getting out
and enjoying that great big ball in the sky is too much to resist.
So they doff their work boots, jeans
and hardhat in exchange for a bathing suit and a floatie, and splash
around local lakes as the sun slowly and subtly cooks them.
It is not until the next day they
realize the folly of their actions. Then they grab all the after burn
ointment they can find and cover every bit of bright-red skin they
can reach.
I don't even want to think about what
happens to nudists.
They are exposing parts of their bodies
to the sun that typically don't interact with that big ball of
brightness.
I have never been to a nude beach, and
the world is a better place because of it.
I could see myself ditching my swim
suit to splash around eu natural, only to cause the other beach goers
instant blindness and nausea so bad not even a six-pack of Pepto
would be able to help.
It would cause a mass exodus from the
beach as if a land shark was gobbling up people like a fat guy at a
Vegas buffet.
In other words, me running around the
beach naked would be a bad thing.
I would also like to take a moment to
apologize for any mental images I may have generated with the
previous paragraphs.
Don't worry, with the proper amount of
therapy and deep hypnosis the image will fade.
Hopefully.
Having spent my entire life living in
the region, I have made a peace agreement with the sun: I will not
run around with hardly any clothes on (again, you are welcome) and
Mrs. Sun has agreed not to roast me like a pig at a luau.
Besides, even when I was young and in
good shape and could run around without a shirt, I didn't because I
don't tan so much as turn into a walking, talking mass of human
bacon.
I have two colours: pasty white and
lobster red. There is not much middle ground.
And, it would seem many of our foreign
guests have the same problem.
They are ghostly white when they show
up, and devil red when they leave.
But I suspect it may be a little harder
to distinguish tourist from locals this year. We had a spring so wet
even Noah was complaining about the rain, and that meant the local
sun lovers had minimal exposure to the big bright ball in the sky.
And that means they will be pastier
than usual when the big bright thing in the sky finally gets to shine
– literally.
But at least the locals – well, many
of them anyway – know when to get out of the sun.
So sit back, relax and watch the
tourists turn red. It's always good for a laugh.
Copyright 2017, Darren Handschuh