One day, about 15 years ago, I decided to get a tan. I'd never been very good at getting tans. I knew that you had to lie motionless in the sun for long periods of time, but I always found it difficult not to keep getting up and checking my progress in the kitchen mirror. I was quite good at going different shades of red, but I could never quite manage that lovely bronzed look that people in the adverts always seemed to have.

On this particular day, clothed only in swimming trunks and flip flops, and armed with a book and towel, I left my college digs, marched across to the park, and lay down in the sun.

I woke up, and blinked. My God, I was blind. No, no, it was just very bright, silly. My skin felt tight though. Exceedingly tight. I must have been asleep for hours. I rolled up my bits and pieces into my towel, and hobbled back to the flat as quickly as I could. It was a relief to get back indoors, but I was already in serious pain. I stood in front of my bedroom mirror and assessed the damage. The entire front of my body was a startling, humming pink, as though I'd lain face down in fluorescent paint. Even the tiniest of movements caused intense pain. I closed my eyes and groaned. Not only was I in absolute agony, but I looked like a complete dork into the bargain.

We had a healthy turnover of tenants in our college digs. This term's flatmate was a pretty Chinese girl who spoke very little English. From our previous conversations I knew she was a nurse. Reassured by this, I asked her what I could use to relieve my sunburn. Her face was blank.

'Do you know if salt is the same thing as bicarbonate of soda?' I repeated, more slowly and loudly. Blank. She smiled and frowned at the same time.

'I've got sunburn,' I said, pressing a finger into my chest. The white spot took several seconds to disappear. I looked up. 'See? Do you know of anything that might help? I've heard that getting into a bath of bicarbonate of soda can help.'

'I sink so. I sorry, I do' know.'

I smiled at her impoverished but charming English, and went into the bathroom to run the bath. I gauged that the temperature should be somewhere below body temperature so as to provide relief, but not so much so that it would be a shock to the system. I smiled handsomely at her as I walked past her into the kitchen, and again on my way back to the bathroom with the bag of table salt. She smiled too, quizzically.

'It's ok,' I smiled. 'I think I know what I'm doing.'

She was quite cute, if a bit strait-laced, but I would certainly have cuddled up on the sofa with her if the opportunity ever arose. She said goodbye and closed the door firmly behind her.

With that, I went into the bathroom, still wincing from the slightest movement, poured the entire contents of the bag into the bath, and gave it a good swirl around with my hand. The salt dissolved quite quickly, I noted happily, and I could dive straight in. In I hopped. I gasped with shock and relief. It was colder than I'd hoped, but I quickly got used to it and vigorously set about scrubbing the worst affected areas.

To my disappointment, the bicarbonate of soda solution didn't seem to be providing the immediate relief I'd hoped for. In fact, if anything, the pain seemed to be getting worse, bizarrely enough.

Then came the Epiphany.

I have never experienced such a sense of freedom in all my life. For one short-lived but blissful moment, I made a profound spiritual connection with my primaeval forebears, and, instinctively tilting my head back to achieve maximum volume, let out a long and bestial howl that must have alerted dogs for miles around.

'Owwwwwwwwwooooooooooooaaaaaarrrrgh!'

I sprang out of the bath, gasping, shivering, and still howling involuntarily, and angrily pulled the plug out.

'Shit, shit, shit!' I shouted at her. How could she not have known that salt was not the same thing as bicarbonate of bloody soda? What the hell kind of nurse was she anyway? Jesus. I was quite literally hopping mad, and in intolerable pain. I needed immediate relief desperately. I trusted my own instincts this time, and quickly filled the bath with cold water and jumped straight in.

'Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!' I shouted at her again, as I jumped out of the bath and danced around the bathroom. The itchy, scratchy, burning pain was so intense that I wanted to be removed from my own skin there and then. I wasn't worried about fainting, I positively wanted to faint, but I'd never been a good fainter, and had had to endure many an interminable school assembly as a result.

I made myself climb back in, and washed and washed my arms, legs and chest, blaspheming imaginatively as I did so. I might as well have climbed into a bath of boiling water.

Several hours later, still in agony, but no longer in shock, I realised that what I really needed was a bit of sympathy. Gathering all the composure and dignity I could muster, I hobbled bowlegged upstairs in my underwear, tapped sheepishly on my friends' door and explained what had happened. The pair couldn't communicate with me or each other for several minutes, so incapacitated were they by laughter.

For the next two or three days I was housebound, could wear nothing but my baggiest underpants, and didn't get a wink of sleep.

In my next life, I will pay attention in chemistry class.