Sunburn: The Other Red Meat

I love meat. When the craving for a steak hits me at 2 a.m., I must bend to the urge. Perhaps it is a primal instinct to kill? A sticky iron deficiency situation? Or I could be entering the third trimester of my pregnancy? Just like many hankerings, my meat fixation is unexplainable, irrational and consuming.

This need for red meat overcame me the other day. It was coupled with a second desire: to sun bathe. In a moment ignorant of logic, I stripped down and began grilling a juicy steak. Barbecue grills are very hot metal objects, much like the molten balls of flaming gas that pop off sizzling meat. Between the heat of the beef, the BBQ and the blazing sun, my body became a roasted chunk of charred flesh.

I do not recommend BBQ-ing in the nude. I cannot endorse this act of culinary adventurism. The products of this unfortunate event were a perfectly browned tenderloin, a lobster red body, and one of the most awkward situations on a date.

My skin was beginning the annual post burn flaking process when my date asked if she could peel my skin off. I was startled, confused and shocked by her proposal and simply staring at her. She took this silence as the green light and eagerly began striping my body of its top layer of skin.

This is not socially acceptable.

I may have bizarre cravings for delicious meats and to have the tanned sun-kissed look, but peeling a person's skin on a first date is a desire that should never be shared or acted upon.