I’d forgotten just how bad sunburns hurt the next day.

Sunburn is basically our Sun’s way of saying, “Witness what my mere presence some 92 million miles away can inflict upon your fleshy mortality in a matter of hours, and then dare to imagine my true wrath should I ever challenge to inch just a few million miles closer to your feeble planet…”

…which don’t get me wrong, is a perfectly valid taunt from the perspective of the gaseous titan responsible for creating all of the habitable features required for life here on this little rock we call Earth! I’m sure if you burned at almost 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit and didn’t really have anyone to talk to because those who got too close all but combusted into the space ether, you’d get a little testy from time to time…

Hell, I’ve burned cookies at a mere 350 degrees and choice words not fit for this PG-rated humor column soon filled the house thereafter!

Of course, my own traditional response to sunburn here in The Sunshine State of Florida has typically been to simply not go outside, thus opting instead for more of a hermit-like lifestyle, only crawling forth from my comfortably air conditioned cave during the darkest of nights here in the most formidable, summer months that have managed to sneak up upon us once again. Yet having just recently ushered a new generation of sun-fearing Sevener kin into this world and in consideration for my wife’s desire to not have our son grow up into the anti-social hermit that is his father, occasionally I find myself forced having to venture forth outdoors for his benefit to experience the great outdoors in all of its bright, scorching hotness that I’ve grown accustomed to avoiding all of these years.

Also, sometimes we have relatives that come to town with a desire to visit any of Florida’s numerous theme parks, and I guess it would be kind of rude to make them go all by themselves…

Now a primary concern when toting young Christopher out under the impending ball of fiery sky doom is that much in the same tune as his albino father, he would almost instantly change shade from crisp white to a monstrous shade of crimson pink … possibly even worse so on account of his being a baby and presumably not yet building up the sufficient body hair that his father uses to protect roughly 85% of his hide from catching fire in the sweltering, Florida sun.

And yet, secretly … in a forum that I would never share with his mother, I’ve got to tell you that there’s a very small part of me that hoped my son would share the same aversion towards sunlight in general, not only to give me someone to play video games with when he gets older, but also to move the ball along by granting my alter ego the pasty-faced sidekick that he’s always deserved!

Together The Sunburn Kid and Baby Inferno would tour these otherwise lovely, tropical lands, nonetheless forever falling victim to the blazing demon who haunts our pale skin pigmentation from above, destined to flip-flop from copy paper white to perpetually celebrating Valentine’s Day pink and back … over and over again until Lord Weather finally grants us a reprieve with some freaking clouds, granted ironically considering that everyone else who visits Florida actually wants the very same non-stop sun that is the kryptonite with regards to the fair skin of this humbly awesome, and more noticeable horribly sunburned father and son team…

…but alas, it seems that such a dynamic duo was not destined to exist, for apparently the genes of a child come from both the father and the mother, and in this case while his Dad managed to get pinkified out of existence on their latest out of doors adventure, young Christopher – no sunburned sidekick name applicable – somehow managed to escape unscathed but for the dimples on his adorable, little cheeks.

And so while my son a few days later remains just as unburned as the day he was born, his father lays writhing on the couch, a pink lemonade in hand to match his lobster-like carapace as the slightest touch delivers onto him the pain of 1,000 suns. A part of me is relieved that he needn’t endure the same horrible wrath every time our nearest star peeks its sinister face out from behind a cloud … and yet another part of The Kid yearns for that sidekick who will one day walk in his Daddy’s flip-flops…

It’s not too late to have another one, is it??? Just curious because The Sunburn Kid and The SPF Avenger has sort of a nice ring to it, too!