VANCOUVER — Attendees of a local barbecue report that a red-haired woman is talking animatedly about how easily she gets sunburned, for reasons that cannot be determined by anyone at the scene or elsewhere.
The boasting began when the woman, identified as 31-year-old teacher Lisa Troxell, held up her forearm, and excitedly shouted “See! Just fifteen minutes and it’s happening already!” in what appeared to be the sincere belief that others would be both interested and impressed.
“She kept making comments about how she wished she’d brought extra sunscreen because she didn’t know there wasn’t going to be any shade here,” recounted fellow guest Bob Lane. “At first I tried to cheer her up, and said, ‘oh yeah, I’ll probably get burned too.’ But she just gave me this weird smile and said that my burn wasn’t going to be anything like her burn. Am I missing something here?”
Troxell, who appeared to believe that others would find the information useful, entertaining, or both, continued to discuss the ease with which her skin burned with increasing detail.
“I usually start to burn really badly around May. In April, it’s just like little red bubbles, like the cheese on pizza when you pull it out of the oven. But this year it’s barely summer and I’m already almost into sheet blister territory, like it’s July at a waterpark!”
“Do you think it has something to do with global warming, maybe?” she added to her acquaintances, as some of them got up to go to their cars.
At press time, Troxell was tell explaining to another guest how, despite what they might expect, neither of her parents have red hair.
