Ah, to be young again.
Or not. At least getting older has made me somewhat wiser. Maybe not more coordinated, but at least I’m not rubbing myself with olive oil to lay out in the sun. Not that I ever did that.
Right. Who does this?
While my skin thanks me for being comfortable with my ghostly pallor, my nineteen year old daughter feels the need to cook herself in the sun for a “healthy glow”, despite the threats of skin cancer and premature aging.
After spending the requisite amount of time reminding her of the dangers of frying one’s self in the sun, I simply shrugged and promised her I’d remind her again when she looked forty before she was thirty. She just laughed.
Youth…wasted on the young, right?
Well, if I couldn’t convince her otherwise, at least we could laugh about it. But seriously, I think living on the farm has done irreparable damage to her fashion sense. And not just because she was slathering her skin in oil to bake in the sun. She has, at least, upgraded from the Crisco she used a few years ago, after nearly cooking herself to a crisp. Again, I ask, who does this? Only teenage girls, it would seem.
Or, maybe that crazy tanning lady in the news.
But my daughter’s fashion sense has far deeper damage than a Crisco tan. I caught her lounging on the back porch in a sports bra and her boyfriend’s gay brother’s underwear. This, by the way, was her description, not mine. It was, apparently, important to her that I know which brother’s underwear she was wearing, because he has more than one…brother, I mean. I didn’t bother asking how she got a pair of her boyfriend’s brother’s underwear, or why it was important I knew it was the gay brother, as opposed to one of the other brothers…sometimes it’s best not to ask those questions.
No, instead of asking for answers I didn’t really need, I simply found myself transfixed by the fact that she was coated in cooking oil, laying on a towel, surrounded by chickens, a semi-operable fan blowing hot air on her as she lay in the sun in her boyfriend’s brother’s underwear and a bra. I couldn’t help but think it was sort of like she was in a convection oven.
Then, I thought about my quest to keep Clooney, the rooster, out of the oven and I laughed. We can’t cook the bird, but, apparently, the kids are fair game.
I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.
Until the next time…I’ll be staying out of the sun, on principle alone!