"praise the lord, it's a miracle"
when i was about 15 and completely in love with my [gay] history teacher, we went to america for a 3 week family holiday. in my head if i got a fabulous tan, the guy would fall head over heels in love with me when school started again in september. yes, it does get a bit echoey inside my head sometimes.

so we were on the beach but the weather wasn't great. it was very cloudy. i had been swimming and was lying on a sunbed when my family trooped off for lunch. i wasn't hungry - i intended to be thin as well as brown. unfortunately, i have the kind of fair irish skin that could burn in siberia at midnight. in december.

after an hour or so, the family came back and i was asleep. my mother looked at the sun which had now come out and dragged me kicking and screaming into the shade... but the damage had been done. i was so badly burned that 24 hours later i made freddie kreuger look like a chanel skin cream model. my 13 year old brother found it hilarious and was most unsympathetic.

i was burned all over my front and it hurt like fuck. it hurt even more to be lying in bed, too sore even for the sheet to be on top of me, when the family buggered callously off for the day. and it hurt most of all that my girlfriends were all on holiday together in torquay that week, the first ever girlie holiday.

by the end of the week, i was desperate. so i forced myself to get dressed and went on the next excursion. we were somewhere in the deep south and we were looking at a plantation house. the problem was, i was too blistered to walk very far, and it was miles around this damn house.

no problem ma'am, drawled the ticket man, and he produced a wheelchair. this was utterly mortifying. i had to be wheeled around the house with americans openly saying, "poor young girl," and my blisters bursting in huge fried egg sized shapes all over my t-shirt.

every bump on the gravel was agony. which my brother quickly realised. he grabbed hold of the chair handles - and began to RUN up and down over the gravel with me! i was helpless and it hurt so much i was screaming. so was he, but with laughter.

eventually i managed to jump out of the chair, right in front of the baffled american audience. they gasped collectively and i swear to god one of them said in hushed awe, "it's a miracle!"

little bastard...

ps: thank fuck it all healed as if it never happened, could have been much worse i guess!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Thu 2 Aug 2007, 22:20, Reply)