Gingers are the best

Did you know that yesterday was National Kiss a Ginger Day? Well, it was! According to the website:

The red hair gene is recessive and requires two copies for it to present itself. Even then, there is no guarantee it will. If both parents have the gene, there is a 1 in 4 chance they will have a redheaded child.  Most natural-born redheads (yes, some of us like the bottle) have brown eyes, followed by green or hazel. Coming in at 1% of the world’s population, the blue-eyed ginger is the rarest kind. So if you give one of these ginger’s a kiss, consider yourself lucky.

National Day Calendar website

If you are wondering, and I am sure you are, I fall into the “rare” category as I have natural red hair AND blue eyes. According to the webpage that describes redheads, many gingers feel like outcasts. When I was growing up, I did feel that way. Not so much because I had red hair but because of the pale skin that came along with it. When I was a kid, the thing everyone wanted was to be able to get a good tan. I have never been tan in my life. I turn red, then it peels and I am white as a sheet again.

That was always a struggle for me. I tried to get tan. I dreamt about it. On more than one occasion, I laid out in the sun with friends. To make matters worse, one time I did as my friends did and got super sick. We spread tin foil out on the ground, dowsed ourselves in baby oil and fried. I have never been that sick from just being outside. On my first visit to Cape Coral, Florida, where my best friend lived, I could barely be in the sun, it hurt so much.

Redheads need more anthesia

I did a paper on this when I was at Georgetown. The American Society of Anethesiology put out a report confirming that people with natural red hair need more anthesthisia than people with other hair colors. This was the first time such a correlation was found. This all comes from a defect in the melanocortin-1 receptor. Other indicators of the defect are pale skin and freckles.

Now, I have experienced this. When I had my wisdom teeth removed, I woke up in the middle of the surgery and was not happy about it. I can assure you, I will mention this when I have surgery next week.