The Sun is a giant star, with a diameter of 1.4 million kilometers, filled with hot gasses that environmentalists most probably, seeing as they are not caused by capitalism, couldn’t care less about. The sun burns away with a surface temperature of 5,500 degrees Celsius, reaching over 15.5 million degrees Celsius at the core; i.e., the temperature at the sun’s core is about the same as the one at which my mother usually serves soup.
Before understanding why you have to battle it out with the cap on your bottle of sunscreen, it is important to know the basic reasons for doing so. This is where ultraviolet rays come in. Radiation is emitted by anything that is very, very hot. Thus, on our planet, the two main emitters of ultraviolet rays towards humans are the sun and Maria Sharapova. (READ MORE from Itxu Diaz: A Summer of Satire: Let It Go, Let It Go. Can’t Hold It Back Anymore!)
Some UV rays are absorbed by the atmosphere, which must already have a heck of a tan, while others are absorbed by our skin, causing good things, like the vitamin D you need, and bad things, like those burns that turn the touch of a soft silk sheet against your back into Satan scraping his flaming pitchfork over your raw skin at night.
All experts agree that the most effective way to protect oneself from the sun is to stay out of it. In my opinion, the thesis seems to be correct, but a peer review on the subject is still needed before it can be considered valid.
If you can’t avoid solar radiation, another option is to put something between you and the sun, whether it’s your mother-in-law, if she’s big enough, an umbrella (if you’re able to stick it in the sand without running it through any swimmers), or even the Great Wall of China, if you’re one of those 50-somethings who still go crazy with the shovel and rake on the beach. (READ MORE from Itxu Diaz: French Elite Have Done It Again)
The problem with this is that — incomprehensible for a literary man like myself — the sun moves, and so what is in the shade at noon could cease to be in the shade at six o’clock in the afternoon. Miracles of nature. You can try to move with the sun like a sunflower, or roll up your sleeves and go for the more complex system: sunscreen.
The main advantage of sunscreen in the spray is that you see it come out, but you don’t see it land, so you always have the feeling that it is magically spreading everywhere it should. The main disadvantage is obvious: You don’t need sunscreen in your eyes and you do need to pay attention when you decide to spray.
Often marketed in a small bottle to deceive the consumer about its properties, this product has the density of a neutron star, i.e., if you spread it well, with a couple of squeezes on the bottle you can apply sunscreen to all the bathers in town.
This is the most popular. The bottle is usually emptied upside down. If you’re going to put it on the kids, my advice is to grab them by the scruff of the neck first or dig a hole and bury them up to their knees, unless you want to apply sunscreen to all the sand on the beach. A child is never still, but if they ever are, it’s never at the exact moment you’re trying to slather sunscreen all over them. A strange radiation emanates from the bottle and affects the children, immediately causing the exact same effect as 15 liters of an energy drink.
There is a long-standing controversy about how to apply cream to our backs when we are alone, or in the company of someone we are not going to ask, such as our boss, a couple of policemen, or our French bulldog. Creaming one’s own back is possible, as long as you’re able to place your head under your legs so that it sticks out the other side. But if you are able to do that, chances are you’re a parrot, and parrots don’t need sunscreen. (READ MORE from Itxu Diaz: Joe Biden Plays by Ear, Does Not Take Advice, and Has a Bad Temper)
You could take the opportunity to ask for help and flirt, but if you are completely alone, my advice is to spread it on the towel, and then, as you lie on it, wave your limbs in the air, like your dog when he wants you to take him out to the park and you pretend you don’t understand him.
The major problem with sunscreen is that it comes in a bottle. If the product came, I don’t know, in packs, like cigarettes, we wouldn’t be talking about all this, and the hospitals wouldn’t be filled every summer with burned guys who were unable to remove its seal.
As a rule, if the bottle is sold the right way round, it will have a screw cap. That means you will be able to open it, but not close it. Because when you go to close it, you won’t know where the hell the cap is. If you lose the cap, my advice is to smear everyone you meet until the product runs out. There is no, I repeat, there is no way to put a bottle of sunscreen without its cap in the trunk of the car, no matter how many bags or aluminum foil you wrap around it, without it ending up smeared all the way up the insides of the tires.
If it is sold upside down it should be possible to open it according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Try to read them. Since the writing is tiny and white, on a light blue background, and you won’t be able to see anything, try to open the bottle by knocking it on the nearest inanimate object. I repeat: Inanimate.
Finally, some bottles sold upside down may have a hinged cap, so you will have to break, before opening it, a safety tab which, I imagine, is designed so that the cat cannot pour it into your milk and poison you. There are two ways to break the tab: with your fingernail or with a tooth. It all depends on which of the two is easier for you to do without. Do-it-yourself tip: Your nails grow back faster.
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