Kevin's Burning Moment

Because the earlier post was technically Tuesday's flashback, this is Wednesday's flashback, and it is one of my all-time favorite Kevin stories.

Look at pasty pale he is. (Okay, maybe the kid
in the back skews it a little.)

When Kevin was a senior in high school, his entire senior class from OHS took a trip to Atlantis--our community pool. (Not community pool as in there are weaves floating in it, our community pool as in that sh*t costs $15 to get in unless you have a membership. My family didn't need a membership. We had a perfectly good above-ground pool that if we rocked hard enough with our floats could be turned into a badass wave pool. What?)

Now, you have to understand Kevin and pools. When Kev was a little kid, we spent every summer soaking in the sun, and he would get super brown and look almost like he didn't belong in our family of blond-hair, green-eyes, pasty pale kids. But at some point in his life, some flip switched, and he hated being in the sun. One family vacation in Virginia Beach--we decided Chris wasn't so bad and took him on that one--while Mom, Dad, Chris, and I swam in the ocean on an insanely overcast day, Kev sat on the beach in trunks, a t-shirt, a hat, and a beach towel draped over every inch of visible skin. I'm not sure when or how this happened, but Kevin turned into a vampire at some point during his teenage years.

So pale he's blue

Back to the real story. I distinctly remember leaving for school the morning of Kevin's senior trip to Atlantis, Mom asking him if he'd remembered to bring sunscreen. He replied something about other people will have some, it's no big deal. Well, Kevin's friend Jordan did bring sunscreen. However, no one bothered to check the expiration date on the sunscreen, and this resulted essentially in half of the senior class running around in the blazing sun wearing...lotion.

Wait, where does the mask end and Kevin begin?

When Kevin got home from school that day, he had quite a sunburn. Now, let's be clear here, this was not a terrible sunburn. I've had sunburns that blistered into disgusting sores and rendered me useless for a week. I've had sunburns so bad I couldn't wear clothes, and I've had sunburns so bad that I puked (and peed my pants) and had splitting headaches. Chris once had a sunburn so bad (coincidentally he got it on the insanely overcast day in Virginia) that he could barely move and his feet swelled up like maybe he was secretly pregnant. I mean, Kevin's sunburn that day was rough, but not the worst I've ever seen. Keep in mind, Kevin is a pansy. So he returns home from his senior trip in full panic mode. He tells me and Mom how terrible his sunburn is and goes immediately to lie down in bed.

Trying to make friends with the sun

Apparently lying in bed was simply too excruciating for his pink skin, so he decides--like a dummy--to take a bath. Now, I'm not sure if you understand skin mechanics like I do, but after you get out of a bath, your skin shrinks up a little bit (or some sh*t, I don't know), but anyway, after his bath, his skin tightened making him feel 100 times worse than he did before his bath.

I remember Mom and I going into his room as he's flailing around his bed whining and moaning about how much pain he was in. Mom and I, stifling our giggles, are trying to talk him through what he can do to feel better. But he thinks the only thing that can make him feel better is...if Mom lays hands on him and prays for him.

Oooooh. That's why he hates the sun.

Now, our family used to attend a Pentecostal Church and were taught that when someone needed healing, you can take a little bit of anointing oil, place it on their forehead, and pray for them. We had had, for many years, a small vile of anointing oil that sat on the refrigerator, reserved for when people had bad sunburns, of course. But when Kevin asked for Mom to lay hands on him, she stared at me, wide-eyed and motioned for me to join her in the kitchen. After we stopped giggling uncontrollably, she admitted to me that she hadn't seen that vile in years and had no idea if we even had any anointing oil in the house. So, naturally, I recommend a little canola oil. After scolding me for being blasphemous, Mom poured a tiny drop of canola oil onto her finger, instructed me to "seriously, stop laughing, Casi," and we headed back into Kev's bedroom.





When we got in there, Kevin was in full-flail. He was flipping around his bed like a fish out of water. He was whining and moaning like I've never seen from a full-grown man before. So, Mom lightly touched the blessed/delicious oil to Kevin's forehead and began to pray out loud for the Lord to heal Kevin of his horrid, debilitating sunburn. Suddenly, and without warning, Kev's entire body went limp and lifeless. Mom's eyes shot up to me in horror. Honestly, I think for a moment, she thought she'd killed him. Stunned, she whispered, "Kevin, are you okay?" And, somehow, without moving a muscle, he responded, "Shhhhh...I'm concentrating." And miraculously, he was healed.

So, there ya go folks, I bet you had no idea about the healing powers of canola oil. And the sheer whininess of Kevin. (This flashback has been brought to you by Wesson Oil.)