One of my "jobs" was to bathe the dogs. All three of them. This task usually falls to me as I have a different tolerance level of doggie cleanliness than my husband does. It also happens that his dog, Alley, has the lowest coat maintenance of the three. Gypsy - with all of her allergies and generally itchiness - really needs to be bathed every other week or so. And Haskell has a habit of shedding like mad this time of the year. Frequent bathing allows me to scrub the heck out of him and remove as much of the dead hair as possible. I like to think of bathing Haskell as "indoor hairball control".
Anyway, I intentionally waited until around three to start bathing the dogs. This was mainly because I didn't want to be outside at peak sunburn time. Normally, I would have waited until after four to start such an activity, however, I couldn't wait that long because the first of our guests were scheduled to arrive around five. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to bathe all three of our awesome pawsome, and I wanted to allow at least an hour to shower and get myself ready for the party.
Since I knew to sun was still strong around three, I did a brief search of our house looking for sunscreen. I had just bought some for Trevor in preparation for our Fourth of July Resort Extravaganza, but none of it was anywhere to be found. It was with a little irritation that I remembered that I had just seen it last weekend at my mother's house in Cedar Hill. This is normally the setting where I have to beg, plead and grovel with Trevor to wear sunscreen while swimming in my mother's pool. Despite being so fair and white that he is more or less blue, Trevor is under the impression that maybe (just maybe) THIS time he will tan. It never works out that Trevor turns any color but bright pink, and I have made it my personal mission to lather my misguided husband up with SPF 85 at every opportunity to save him from himself (and the sun). And I try to set a good example by doing the same when I venture out into the summer sunshine. It is rare that I am without a bottle or two of various 30+ SPFs. But occasionally I do find myself woefully unprepared. Alas: Saturday.
Long story short, I got sunburned on Saturday afternoon while bathing the dogs. The burn is more or less isolated to my lower back; from essentially my hips to where my sports bra began. I guess I am lucky that more surface area wasn't affected. Never before in the history of dog washing has there been a silver lining to all that bending over.
Sigh...
Of course, Trevor had to show my sunburn to EVERYBODY at the party. My favorite was when he snuck up behind me, suddenly lifted my shirt so my sunburn was exposed and yelled, "See! I told you!" And my sister (a.k.a. The Queen of Tact) proclaimed my sunburn to be the "kind skin cancer is made of". Thanks, Amy. Thanks.
Ashamed of my sunburn, I slipped outside when no one was looking and broke off a branch of my aloe plant (originally planted with Trevor in mind) and snuck in my bathroom to apply the green goo generously to my back.
But the real low point was when I returned to the party. I walked into the kitchen just in time to hear Trevor announce that he no longer had to wear sunscreen because I was hypocrite and didn't follow my own advice.
"Lord, deliver me from the man who never makes a mistake, and also from the man who makes the same mistake twice."
- William James Mayo
Or - in Trevor's case - a man who makes the same sunscreen mistake every time we visit my mother's pool.
Alas! I can never win.
But at least the dogs are clean. For awhile.
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