The sunshine suit

It’s just a matter of time before some enterprising contingency attorney decides to sue the CNMI for: sunshine.

I can see the headlines now. “Skin Cancer Risk Not Disclosed, Victim Seeks $783 Million.” Can you envision that? This is such a clever idea that I figure I deserve a finder’s fee for the concept. Ka-ching! I’m salivating with greed. You hoteliers had better start checking your liability insurance.

After all, if you can sue for woes related to cigarettes, guns, cars, and even hot coffee, then why not for sunshine?

This came to mind when I was listening to a supposed “expert” on tropical travels on some radio show during a business trip. My chief recreation on the road is to see if I can manage to operate the rental car radio, which is, at best, a 50/50 proposition for me. On the day in question, I succeeded, and had stumbled across a travel feature targeted at a suburban audience, mixed in with ads for Prozac and for mortgage refinancing companies. Anyway, lucky me, I was treated to a lecture by an “expert” on tropical vacations.

She had a thick Brooklyn accent.

“Yous can gewt boined in twelve minutes undah dat sun,” the expert warned the audience, “so always weah sunscreen.” A semi-hysterical dialogue with the interviewer followed. They sort of fed off each other in order to establish their sun-fearing bona fides. They concluded that anyone brave enough to venture away from their cubicles, or reckless enough to leave their TV rooms, was playing a duel with death against the sun.

How to gird for such a duel? Marinate yourself in 90-weight, acid-proof sunblock, of course. And wear a wide brimmed hat…or, preferably, a full-face motorcycle helmet…a Kevlar reinforced trench coat, hip-high leather boots (hey, Lucy Liu would look good in those, come to think of it), asbestos mittens, and two or three thick condoms just in case there are any gaps in the trench coat. Forget the bathing suit. Think “Road Warriors.”

The beach is a dangerous place, especially during vacation if there are foreigners on it. Jellyfish might eat you, the sun might burn you into a cinder, terrorists jabbering in strange tongues might carve a big “X” on your forehead if, indeed, they let you keep your head at all, the food will make you sick, the women will seduce your sons into lives of unspeakable sin. So…don’t risk it. Best to keep the family at home, safety medicated, and watching television. If the need for adventure strikes, there’s always Disneyland and other synthetic venues with all the illusion of novelty but none of the genuine risks of it. Entertainment is far safer than actually doing something.

Scared of the very sun itself? Indeed.

Of course, at my advanced age I’ve tallied a few friends who have been felled by skin cancer, and it’s a genuinely spooky prospect. A day doesn’t go by on Saipan when you don’t wince at the sight of a couple of tourists who were burned tomato-red by the sun, and people not used to the fair latitudes don’t always heed the risk. A few years ago I figured that I’ve done enough damage to my hide, and I pretty much keep out of the sun, preferring the shade trees by the beach. Yes, the sun can do you in, and when it does, it is not a pretty process.

But without the sun, life itself wouldn’t exist, so we’d better make some kind of intelligent peace with it.

Hysteria, though, is a better sell than measured intelligence, and I’m sure the lady from Brooklyn will be lecturing her audience next week on the dangers of BB-guns, sharp pencils, or low self-esteem. If there’s danger, there’s blame. If there’s blame, there’s liability. And if there’s liability…

“DO NOT ENTER. BEACH CLOSED DUE TO SUN RISK.”

(Ed Stephens, Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. Ed4Saipan@yahoo.com)