Lessons We Never Learn

I am down in Houston for a few days visiting my sister (the lovely Snapdragon) and her husband, and our brother and his family are here, too. Yesterday, the seven of us hopped into the rental minivan and headed to the beach — Galveston Island, to be specific. It was a perfect day: sunny and warm, with no humidity.

The beach, however, is a dangerous place for us. We are the whitest of folk, and prone to sunburn in ways that few can even imagine. The nephews were basted regularly in heavy-duty sunscreen, and BigBrother wisely put some on, too. (The in-law siblings both have normal skin that can withstand sun a little bit better, so I have to admit that I didn’t notice whether or not they used any.) Snapdragon and I, however, decided to ignore the impending disaster and hit the beach sans SPF. After all, we were wandering around in capris and t-shirts, not bikinis. What could happen?

This, as it turns out:

And this:

We are both in our mid-30s; you’d think we would have enough sense by now to see this coming. But no, we repeat this every year. It’s as if we expect that, one of these winters, our skin will go though some sort of amazing transition and actually produce melanin. But no…

A great deal of sunscreen will be worn to today’s Astros game, I can tell you.