A day at the beach always includes a parade of sunscreen application methods. Most people seem to opt for the contortionism of self-application, which is what I tend to do. But there are other, more creative methods too. Right behind us was a guy instructing his 4 year-old daughter on how to apply and rub the goop in on his back. I didn't see him and hope for the girl's mental health that he wasn't too hairy. But our favorite was when we were eating lunch, there was a woman lying flat on her back, completely stretched out on the ground, and her husband was bent over her spraying sunscreeen on her from head to toe, from a height of about 3 feet. We were commenting that he should have a mop or a Swiffer to spread it around.
In general, I had thought that the spray-on sunscreen has made the application process less comical, but it's clear that I merely had not been clued into its potential for humor. You could have your friends in a ring around you and spin around and spray them all. If you did this with people of varying heights doing the spinning you could probably do a pretty complete job of it.
By 3 PM on a day with a 10 UV rating, however, it doesn't seem to matter what you do. Everyone walking by has red spots of varying sizes, ranging from the small strip adjacent to the bathing suit, to the big circle in the middle of the back, to the entire head and shoulders and chest and belly. I fell asleep briefly, and even though I've never gotten burned in that kind of instance, my immediate reaction was to panic. I guess the sleep-aided sunburn is a cultural touchstone of sorts, and it doesn't matter whether or not it actually happened to you.
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