Tortilla. Speckled Egg. Ugly Irish person. These are all measly insults that villains have spewed at me while I walk down the street as an extremely pale skinned individual. Oh how they laugh, oh how they cry. “Look at you! Spread on some sunscreen, freak!” What they don’t know is that my freckles, sprinkled far and wide across my face, give me UNGODLY power, like a solar panel fueled by Greta Thunberg’s motivational speeches.
I take these attacks with a cheeky smile, because I hold a secret that not one other soul knows. For every spot that emerges on my fair husk, I acquire a new portal to the past, where I travel to different decades and places warning folks about the high risks that come with not protecting themselves from the big ball in the sky. I keep a top-secret suitcase with me, stock full of sample sized Sun Bum, La-Roche Posay, and Neutrogena tubes. While it may seem that I am exhibiting great cognitive dissonance by not wearing sunscreen just so I can gain various entrances into history, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make for the good of all skin health and my own eyeballs. I am sick and tired of my professors clicking through slides and being APPALLED by crusty, musty, and dusty portraits. My grades suffered because I could only focus on the lack of moisture in JFK's pores, although I do understand now that when I visited him, perhaps I should have provided more advice than just CeraVe.
When night settles in, I crawl into a tiny little corner, bury my head and begin the ritual. “Spots on!” I whisper. At once, my beauty marks begin to glow, lighting up like a glittering sky. At random, one special dot beams extra brightly and my entire body compresses into a tiny ray, surging like a lightning bolt across time. It feels like someone jump started a car, and at once, I pop out into a random era. Some experiences have been more rewarding than others.
The furthest I have traveled back to is definitely the Prehistoric Era, where I helped a lowly band of velociraptors with their creamy applications. This experience was one of the most challenging, but only because their scales had complications with absorbing the preventatives. Velociraptors are actually quite receptive to heat protection. In fact, they were begging for me not to leave, basically pleading for more and more samples to help with burns. Turns out, it just wasn’t enough.
I also vividly remember visiting the woman in the Dorthea Lange picture from the Great Depression. I couldn’t lessen the impact of a failing economy but I could lessen the impact of the ozone holes! She was not super grateful for the addition of random products on her face and kept asking “Why are you giving me a banana-strawberry scented paste instead of an actual banana or a strawberry?” I could only think to say that she would feel just as fulfilled knowing that millions of people in the future will complement her complexion for its smooth texture.
My most recent stop was with Helen Keller. To my great surprise, she was actually real. To my even greater surprise, she was already a huge proponent of skin protection. I guess that when you lose ⅖ of your senses, the others become really sensitive so the sun was already very much on her radar. Because she was already ahead of the game, I used my power to spend time developing a brand with Helen. When we released the first product, You Can’t See Me translucent sunscreen, the world went bonkers as they could now achieve that effortless glow from sun safety. Her line was such a hit that we quickly followed up with more lotion variations, including You Can’t Hear Me (UV is the Silent Killer), I Can’t Speak (I’m Applying My Sunscreen), and I Don’t Fake It (This is My Real Skin).
I am proud of the impact I have made, reducing electromagnetic induced risks for folks every day. Maybe someday, the world will be cured and I can finally try out what I’ve preached all these years.
Spots off.