Why Books and the Sun Don't Mix (alternatly, How I Came to Be Known as Brenda Burnbutt)

 Most Spring breaks in my life have been spent at the beach. My family (and when I say family I mean nearly 30 people) usually camps together at the beach every Easter break. This year was a particularly lovely one as I felt like I needed a reprieve from everyday life and I sure got it.
  I love camping at the beach with my family because my day generally consist of this:

• wake up
• eat bacon
• read in the sun
• eat candy
• talk with family
• read in the sun
• take a nap
• maybe do some beachy activity 
• eat melty red vines
• read in the sun
• take a shower (for 50 cents)
• read in the sun
• eat dinner
• sing songs around the smokey fire while making s'mores
• sleep

 Which leads me to my next part, famous Brenda burns. I have a tendency to try to read as many books as I can during my break. I sit in the sun (usually with sunscreen well applied) and read. This is good, unless I fall asleep. I sleep through the time I was supposed to reapply and then get the most ridiculous burns. The all-time best are listed below:
1) While wearing a bathing suit and laying on a lounge chair, I fell asleep. The book landed on my stomach, the corner of which landed on my leg giving me a white triangle on my thigh that lasted for months.

2) Another year, I read a book while in my bathing suit on a lounge chair, but this time I was on my stomach. When I fell asleep for over an hour, my butt proceeded to burn to a toasty red (I had not applied any sunscreen there). I had difficulty sitting for the rest of the trip and was forever labeled as Brenda Burnbutt.

3) This year I did not fall asleep in the sun and I did remember to wear sunscreen, but I was so into my books (I read three in one day) that I forgot to reapply or move. So I burned my nose, forehead, tops of my feet and just half of the back of each hand. Why half, you ask? Because I only burned the parts of my hands that were facing the sun while I was holding my books. Yes, that's right, I burned my thumbs because I didn't move my hands from the book holding position for like seven hours.

I had to close my eyes because I had my eyes dilated and I used a flash.

So I now I actually put on makeup each morning to try to cover the red, peeling blob of a nose I have and I try not to imagine all of the skin cancer I have just voluntarily given myself. The makeup is ok from far away, at least in the morning, but by sixth period it gets pretty ugly. A kid asked me what was wrong with my nose.
"I forgot to reapply sunscreen."
"Who wears sunscreen?" He asked
"Umm...white people," I replied. To which every kid responded by laughing in shock and staring at the only white kid in the room and asking if it was true.
Sadly, I can only say that once white people become red people we remember why all white people should.