Excludes Albinos

Being the whitest person on the face of the earth* is not easy. Especially when you are not blessed with a ‘milky’ white complexion like the flawless Cate Blanchett. Rather you are bespeckled with odd clumps of freckles, bags under your eyes and blotchy red patches of skin. My mother is Italian and was blessed with olive skin, a blessing that she passed on to my two siblings. On the other hand I tend to look I’ve just been rescued from a child predator who kept me locked in a basement away from sunlight for the past 11 years.

This all changed recently. I accepted a last minute invite to the Derby Day races with a group of friends. Having retained at least part of the ‘Slip, Slop, Slap’ message taught to me by Sid the cartoon seagull in the late 80’s, I applied what I thought was sunscreen before heading outdoors. Clearly the campaign, and more specifically Sid himself, did not care about people with poor eyesight. Having to remove my glasses to ensure effective application of sunscreen to my entire face had disastrous results. What I actually applied liberally to my face was in fact moisturiser, not being the type of guy who uses moisturiser or sunscreen regularly it was an easy mistake to make. I blame Sid the seagull. Instead of ‘Slip, Slop, Slap’ the catchphrase should have said:

Slip on a shirt, Slop on some sunscreen- but if you wear glasses make sure to check what you are actually applying before you smear moisturiser all over your face, and slap on a hat.

In the hours that followed I basically fried my face in the sun, all those pigs that I have fried up over the years to provide my breakfast plate with tasty tasty bacon must have been looking up from piggy hell laughing hysterically- but I suppose my face frying in the sun is hardly as bad as frying them up and eating them… I digress.

My face was so sun-burned that I had to visit a doctor, who prescribed me medication to combat possible skin infections, recommended an ointment to reduce the redness once the skin had healed and actually had to place a dressing over my nose because it had shed so many layers of flesh. Having an important event coming up four days later increased my stress levels dramatically and my anger towards Sid the Seagull grew each morning as I looked in the mirror and was confronted with a face that looked like a Spanish omelette.

As time passed my face healed and the burns left me with a slightly darker complexion which seems to have lingered for the past month. Just the other day three different people commented on my ‘healthy’ complexion. Each time I replied, “Thanks, I have a great moisturiser.”

*Whitest person on earth claim excludes albinos.

Sid The Seagull: The ugly face of eyesight prejudice.