A Little Voice Named Ann

Pinocchio had his Jiminy and I have mine. Her name is Ann. It was today, while I was at Sukhothai Historical Park that Ann decided to make an appearance. She started nagging me and she didn’t let up. I kept screaming at her to “shut up!”, but she went on and on like a broken record. Not that she was there, but her voice was there, in my head.

See, for some reason I burn in Thailand faster than any place else I have ever been. I don’t know why, but it does. And whenever I get even the slightest indication that I might possibly be changing skin tones, Ann’s voice plays in my head. It is a conversation I have had so many times wit her, that now it just goes on without her…

“Your face is burning. You should be using sunscreen” Ann would say
“I am.”
“You’re not. You’re pinking”
“I have sunscreen. I’m wearing it.“
“Are you sure? Did it say ‘sunscreen’ or make any references to SPF on the package?”
“Yes, it is just melting off my face.”
“You should be using waterproof.”
“It is waterproof.”
“If it was waterproof, why is it melting off your face?”
“I don’t know, Ann, it just is.”
“But you said it was waterproof. Did it actually say ‘waterproof’ on the bottle?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s have a look at the bottle, then”
“I don’t have it with me”
“Don’t have it with you? How can you even consider leaving the house without at least three different options of sunblock? What SPF are you using?”
“30”
“30? THIRTY? I won’t expose my skin to even the light in the fridge unless I am wearing at least three layers of 60!”
“Hmmmm…”
“Don’t hmmmm me. Well, all I can say is ‘thank heavens it is not my face’, I mean really, look at you…” She says as she flashes her elasticity my way… “well, you better go put on some of this right now, before you do more irreparable damage to your already road-mapped skin. You’ll never have skin like mine, but you should make an attempt to salvage what you can, at least. And don’t for a moment think you can just keep injecting weapons of mass destruction into your face. It only makes it worse in the long run.”

And this was the conversation I had with myself today touring the ancient ruins, feeling my face turning red while the waterproof SPF30 lotion from Nivea – which is all they have anywhere, and I did check the label three times, with Ann’s voice coaching me on – melted into my eyes. I kept hearing "I told you so>' see, Ann is not unlike Hermione Granger. In fact, I would say she has a serious case against Miss Rowling for using her likeness so completely in her books. I can imagine her in school, knowing everything, or even if she didn't, she would pretend to, just to one-up the other kids and give them something of an inferiority complex. But I have to say, she has always had my best interests at heart and I love her dearly. even when she nags.

Kind of.

But there may be hope for me. Just today I saw an ad for milk here in Thailand. Among the other normal benefits like calcium and all that kind of healthy crap, it also has been collagen enhanced. So now, I am thinking that if I drink collagen enhanced milk, I can replace the collagen in my skin, thereby reenergizing the lost elasticity and then I won’t have to worry about how much I smile and whether that particular facial expression was worth dipping into my rapidly depleting resources.