Side notes

So, you see, it’s like this:

          First, you travel to the Far West. California, to be exact. You spend a week in the nice warm weather.

          The truth is the ambient temperature (that’s a fancy way of saying the air temperature) was a little too warm. It was nearly hot. In fact, the self-defense act of using sun screen left you feeling downright uncomfortable.

          You feel righteous, to be sure, but still uncomfortable.

          You spend the weekend walking around, soaking up the heat (while reflecting the harmful rays with your righteous sun screen) and enjoying the air conditioning when you duck inside to get out of the heat.

          Side note: You generally don’t need sun screen inside a building, but you leave it on anyway. Then you slop more on yourself when you go outside again.

          You walk from spot to spot wearing a short sleeve shirt and you are comfortable, except for the feel of the sun screen.

          Then you fly home to Ohio.

          Side note: You don’t need much sunscreen when wearing 15 layers of clothing.

          You arrive at your car in the airport parking lot as the rain starts. You drive home as the rain slowly increases strength. You buy dinner in a pouring rain, and then escape into your garage. You are happy to be home.

          Dinner complete, the dog insists that it is walking time. You dig out your winter walking boots, hitch up the pooch and step out into a snow storm. It is dark by now and the wind is blowing snow straight into your face. You close your eyes and hope the dog doesn’t lead you anywhere stupid.

          Side note: The application of sunscreen will not help you stay warm in a blowing snowstorm.

          Convinced the communists are out to get you and that your dog might be one of them, you plunge into the night’s weather. You meet up with a neighbor walking a poodle that is so small and white that it will be difficult to see in the snow.

          The four of you mush ahead into the snow. You are so bundled up that you can’t hear a word your neighbor says. Every time there seems to be a pause, you grunt some sort of neutral agreement, just to be polite.

          Side note: Snow is the same color as sunscreen.

          You arrive home and you wipe the snow off the dog so she will not track mud in with her wet paws.

          Now you get to the business of unpacking your suitcase and the first thing you find in your hand is your bottle of sun screen. It is the second batch you bought in the last two weeks. The previous batch ended up in the trash at an airport when you stupidly left it in your carry on backpack. Determined not to lose the current bottle, you search your house for a safe place to leave it to wait until the spring. The search is pointless, you realize. That bottle of sunscreen is gone, history, lost forever. It is a casualty of winter.

          Unpacking complete, you sit down to watch a football game between two teams from Florida. It is a night game. There are no players wearing sunscreen, but one team does throw a screen pass.

          Finally, your wife mentions some important news: The corner convenience store is selling regular grade gasoline for $2.97 a gallon. This means gasoline costs less, by volume, than sun screen.

          You feel better about the whole dumb thing.

         
          Thanks for reading.