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.....and you think it's *me* who's weird?

I'm done with Christmas Cards
over 5 years ago

Imagine Dave the alien from another world being given a guide to our culture in this (2019) hot summer:

Guide: "Yeah, when the minimal protection that we get from our atmosphere falls to almost zero and the radiation from our sun reaching ground level rises to dangerous and unhealthy levels, it's possible to suffer burns if you go outside unprotected for as little as ten minutes and lasting skin damage in not much longer."

Dave: "Oh my, I guess you close the shutters and stay inside then until the met office say it's safe to go outside again?"

Guide: "No, 90% of people go to the nearest coast, take off most of their clothes and sit for hours on hot pebbles or sand just staring at the ocean, rubbing salt and sand on their skin, and take their children along to teach them how to do it in a socially-acceptable way! Some of them add cream to their skin too, to create a kind of grinding paste when it mixes with the sand."

  • over 5 years ago in reply to Kitsune

    I've been up early today - cleared up the garden ready for the lawnmower men to arrive and opened all the windows to let the cool morning air blow through before the sun gets going.

    I've probably got another hour before I close everything to stop the hot air coming in.

  • over 5 years ago

    I went with the staying inside with the shutters down option for most of today!

  • over 5 years ago

    I never found the heat particularly pleasant, I presume that's due to hypersensitivity. It might be nice if you enjoy socialising and find it comfortable though. I don't really understand it to be quite frank, but I suppose this is me trying to have empathy for the humans.

  • over 5 years ago in reply to I'm done with Christmas Cards

    Exactly - which is why I don't drink spirits - at work, I used Acetone, IsoPropyl Alcohol, Trichloroethane, Methylated Spirits, White Sprit, Arklone, EverKlene etc. and I wouldn't dream of drinking those - why would I drink basically the same thing in a shot glass?

  • over 5 years ago in reply to Plastic

    Too true!

    Reminds me of my chemistry teacher who said "If I asked you to come to the front of the class and drink this clear, colourless liquid, and ten minutes later you staggered around, couldn't speak properly, told me you felt nauseous and couldn't focus your eyes on anything, I'd be sacked and prosecuted and in all the newspapers. But you can go home and drink as much of your parents' vodka as you like."

  • over 5 years ago

    I worked in a high-radiation environment. 

    If I was so stupid that I stood in front of an unshielded radiation source that was so powerful that it burned my skin (erythema), it would cause a government enquiry and the company would be shut down because the procedures were not protecting the staff.

    If I pointed any of the background radiation monitors out the window and towards the sun, they would go off-scale and set off all the alarms!

    I was also prescribed immunosuppressants - it was calculated that 20mins exposure of UV of a typical British summer was enough to trigger a mutation/skin cancer.

    No thanks - let the lemmings fry themselves.

    I stay indoors with the curtains closed with a nice fan.