Overprotected

I've decided I really need to get going with this tanning business. It's now officially summer, and I'm still morgue-quality pale. I know, it's shameful.

Unfortunately, I no longer have the luxury of a roof deck on which to drench myself in UV goodness. Like most amenities at my last apartment building, the roof deck was nice in theory and a little low-rent in practice. It had fake grass, lots of oversized wood furniture and essentially looked like the lawn & garden department at Home Depot. I haven't been up to the roof of my building now, but I suspect that it's probably not somewhere I want to be while scantily clad. That being the case, this summer I'm left with laying out in Central Park, where the trade off for real grass is being ogled by tourists from Minnesota. Ah, well, so be it.

This afternoon, during my regular Duane Reade run, I realized that I need to get some sunscreen. I'm a fan of the current trend in spray-on suncreen because it meets the needs of the independent sunbather quite well. Maybe other people are capable of oiling themselves up between their shoulder blades, but quite frankly, if I could bend that way, I would have more lucrative career options.

As it turns out, spray-on sunscreen is available in the following degrees of coverage:

• SPF 4 - probably just Pam cooking spray in a different package, no?
• SPF 30 -the new standard in bare minimum sun safety. Remember when just 15 was OK?
• SPF 80

Wait. SP5 80? Really? Have we really lost that much faith in the ozone layer that Coppertone is making what amounts to a spray-on shirt?

I managed to find a spray in SPF 10. I like to live on the edge of danger. Here's hoping that I'm not immolated on the Great Lawn.