Seagulls like Sun Chips

Summer is almost over (thank goodness) and I was just reflecting on a particular summer about 5 years ago. This was the summer that ruined my perfect legs and caused me to be self-conscious about them for the rest of my life. I will NEVER again think that putting sun tan lotion (SPF 2) on my white pasty skin while at the beach is a good idea. Especially if I am tired and think I might fall asleep.

Don't let the smile, and warmth of the sun fool you . . . he's dangerous.

White-pasty skin + the sun + sun tan lotion + 19 years old + friends that were "doing it too" + falling asleep on the beach = SUN POISONING!!

Now, I am a major freak about putting sun screen on before I do outdoor activities.

I use SPF 50 now. Although I did see that they make SPF 75 and 100. I'll have to try it.

This particular summer, my 2 best friends from high school and I decided to go to San Diego.

The Incident

We decided it would be fun to pack a lunch and go play in the ocean the first day we were there. We packed sandwiches, sun chips, a few other snacks, and water. I was so excited for the Sun Chips. (They were my favorite chip at the time). We ate some snacks and then left our stuff to go swim.
When we got back to our stuff, we noticed that there were quite a few seagulls flying around our site AND someone had clearly been messing with our stuff. We searched our things to make sure nothing was missing. Sure enough, the sun chips were gone. I was so sad. I was really looking forward to eating those. We ate our sandwich and that's when I looked up. It was a little unnerving to have seagulls circle us like vultures. But, I pushed it out of my mind. After a little while, I noticed that the seagulls were slowly closing themselves in on us. We were completely surrounded. And that is when I saw it. I saw it in the beak of one of the seagulls! "A sun chip!" I shouted, "That seagull has our sun chips!!" That's when I grabbed a fork, and started digging in the sand, right where the seagulls were trying to go. Guess what I found? A whole pile of chips. Sun Chips. The bag was missing though, so our conclusion was...

The seagulls saw us leave our site to go down to the water. They probably figured they had 20 minutes or so to rob us. They crept up to our cooler. Opened it. Took out the Sun Chips. Pecked with those ferocious beaks of theirs at the plastic bag (which at this time was not the really noisy recyclable bags) until it tore open and sun chips went everywhere! They saw us on our way back to our site. In a panic, they buried the Sun Chips hoping to cover up that it was them. Then, thinking we weren't watching them, they tried to creep close to us to reclaim their treasure.

Don't let their innocent looks fool you. They are a sneaky bunch of birds.

It's funny because I thought I saw a sun chip bag blow by us while we were walking on the beach and I thought, "Why would someone litter on a beach?" Turns out it was the seagulls the whole time. They are smarter than they look. Watch out.

Consequences of Stupid Actions

It wasn't until we got back into Mesa that I realized how sun burnt I was from laying on the beach. As the days went by, it got worse and worse - until it was so bad I had to go see a doctor. My legs were so swollen that I couldn't get pants on OR shoes. Not even flip-flops fit. My legs were a bright purple color and I waddled when I walked. For the first two days of being back from vacation, I called in sick to work because I couldn't walk... it was that bad. I finally saw a doctor. He said, "Hmmm... ya, that's bad. It looks painful. I'm going to prescribe some steroids for the swelling and something else for the swelling." (I can't remember what it was). As I tried to get up and waddle out of there, he stopped me and says, "You know what -- I'm going to give you 2 weeks worth of pain pills." He looked me up and down, "Make that a month's worth of pain pills." Yea! I never would have made it through without those pills. My family and co-workers/bosses made fun of me for awhile after that calling me elephant legs. So rude. I learned my lesson. Sun screen, sun screen, sun screen!!