School Story:
I remember my "trip to the beach" on Senior Skip Day.
It was me, Tommy Scott, Ronda Randolph, and another cheerleader (who I don't recall now). Even though I had a car that was a little bigger, we all jumped into Tommy's brand new 1979 Trans Am. THAT was the car to be in back then because of the movie Smokey and the Bandit.
While I was a very independent high schooler with a car at the time, I kept it quite that this trip to the beach was the first time I had been to the beach without my parents. No way I was going to let them know that and being as cool as I could, enjoying every moment of skipping school and going to the beach.
So, when we got to the beach instead of putting on sunscreen then playing beach games, getting a bite, or walking the beach as I did with my parents, everyone wanted to "layout" in the sun and listen to the sound system in Tommy's car. I thought, this is what you do when you are not a kid anymore when you go to the beach, so I did.
At some point at the beginning of the day, one of the girls said "here, let me rub this on you, it will help you get a tan", so of course. I mean, who was I to say no to a cheerleader you had a crush on, wearing a bikini, rubbing oil on you on your back. So after that, I proceeded to lay out on the beach, in the direct sun, for the DAY...
Now I am a fairly fair skinned person, and my parents knew that, and so when I went to the beach with them they made sure I wore sunscreen to keep me from getting a sunburn. But what the girl was rubbing on me turned out to be suntan OIL instead of sunscreen and instead of keeping me from getting a sunburn, it MAGNIFIED the sun.
It was an amazing day. I went home thinking about how I needed to do that a lot more.
However, later that evening I started getting sick. At first, it was nausea, then chills, and I thought it was something I ate at the beach. The next day it was so bad I had to go to the Doctor. I was told there that I was suffering from exposure and severe sunburn from laying in the sun with the oil for so long and not being used to it. I was treated with the same things they normally treat people with that have severer exposure from being out in the elements for weeks.
I was out of school for the next 3 days.... and didn't tell anyone.