I’m very fair skinned. No, that’s not quite right. I’m actually closer to ghostly; when I was young, I thought “A Whiter Shade of Pale” was written about me.

As a result, I try really hard to stay out of the sun, and when I can’t, I’m in full body armor. I remember going to Florida on vacation in college, and I was the only co-ed on the beach in pants, shirt, huge floppy hat, and SPF 60.

I inherited this color (or lack thereof) from my maternal grandmother, who, everyone agrees, has the most beautiful skin they’ve ever seen. On her it looks fabulous. On me, it prompts comments from friends such as, “At least use some bronzer, for heaven’s sake.” I don’t even take advantage of self-tanners in the summer because I’m just too lazy to keep up that regimen. I proudly glow in the dark year ‘round.

Until recently.

My husband, son, and I spent two days visiting an amusement park last month, and, of course, I spread sunscreen an inch thick on each of us. As always, I was successful in preventing any creep of color. Then, we were called home early from our mini-vacation so our son could play in his baseball team’s championship game. I was so frazzled from getting up early, driving several hours on very little sleep, and immediately heading to the ball field, that I committed a sin I haven’t since I was a child: I forgot to put on sunscreen.

So, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the hottest day of the summer, I sat and cooked in the midday sun. My only solace was that my husband also had forgotten sunscreen (misery loves company), as did my mother and father.

My father had to come to my rescue twice. I had worn black sandals to the game, and within minutes, it was like touching my feet to the surface of the sun. I took them off, only to discover the tops of my feet getting scorched—an area I had never considered sunburn-able. So he gave me his sneakers to wear, and he sat there in socks. Then, about halfway through the baseball game, I could actually see the tops of my thighs turning bright red. So he took off his white t-shirt and put it across my legs. Fortunately, he has much darker skin than I do—and a torso that can be seen shirtless. As my mother pointed out, how often does someone literally give you the shirt off his back?

Yet even with these gifts, I couldn’t remember ever being that uncomfortable—ever. And I stopped caring what people thought half an hour into the sizzle-fest. I was contorting my body into pretzel shapes—and at one point a frog shape—trying to find a position where the least amount of skin was exposed to the sun. I even unbound my waist-length hair to cover up my bare arms and neck. When my mom commented that my heavy hair may be contributing to my heat stroke symptoms, I told her I didn’t care—it was coverage.

After my son’s team had won the game, I took one measly photo of my champion kid and hustled him out of the ballpark. Since he was well covered by his hat and uniform, he didn’t get burned and couldn’t understand why mommy was a tad frazzled and just a wee bit grumpy. I tried to be enthusiastic about his win, but all I could think about was the pain I was in—which I was confident would only get worse as the days wore on.

Sleeping was awful. Having been married less than a year, my husband and I are still in that stage where we sleep curled up together. Not that week. We staked out our positions on the bed and avoided touching each other at all costs.

My husband was burned even worse than I was—he began molting like a lizard after five days—but he wasn’t as vocal in his complaints as I was. He grew up on a farm, so as long as he didn’t have second-degree blister burns, it was okay by him. As for me, I’ve learned my lesson for another decade: SPF is this ghost’s friend. TPW