On Sunday, because I was going clubbing later that evening, I decided to buy myself a session on the tanning bed at my gym.

On the way to the gym I stopped by the pharmacy and got distracted by the vast array of tanning products on the shelf in one of the aisles. One product that particularly caught my eye was called Solarimax. It was a smallish sized pump spray containing an attractive mixture of orange and yellow coloured oils that promised to "provide a supplement to the effects of an artificial tanning session - for a long-lasting, healthy looking glow."

When I got to the gym I went to the tanning room, locked the door, disrobed and sprayed the Solarimax all over my body before lying down on the sunbed and pulling the top down. Twenty minutes later I admired myself in the mirror - I did indeed look browner than I normally look after a regular tanning session. Solarimax was indeed a miracle. I couldn't wait to tell my friends all about my discovery.

Two hours later (and three hours before my friend was due to come to collect me to go to The Fridge) I began to realise that my skin colour was gradually turning from "long-lasting, healthy looking glow" to one-shade-off-tomato. I didn't even need to look at my face in the mirror to know that this was happening. I knew because my skin was prickling like I had been stabbed all over with a hundred small, but extremely spiky, cactuses.

Panicking, I retrieved the bottle of Solarimax from my gym bag to read the instructions, in detail (for the first time.) I was especially concerned that the label read "good for ten applications", especially as I had used almost the entire bottle in one.

So I did what any calm, rational, disintegrating homosexual would do, three hours before he was about to go to a club where the chances of him taking his top off were greater that 99%. I emailed my ex-boyfriend who is an ER nurse at a large uptown Manhattan hospital, telling him what had happened without, er, telling what had actually happened, i.e.:

"I fell asleep in the sun and now I'm sunburned and I'm going clubbing this evening. How do I stop being burned?"

Fortunately he was at work and happened to be near a computer so I got a reply within a matter of minutes.

"Girl, break out the Covergirl Matte Finish foundation."

Not the surgical answer I was hoping for. And anyway, I only own a Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male concealer pen and there was no way that was going to paint down my entire torso, shoulders, arms and face. So I Googled "sunburn remedy".

One of the websites I found suggested using everything from cold tea poultices to aloe, direct from the leaves. I didn't have time to chill some tea and my housemate doesn't grow aloe plants so in the end, with time seriously running out, I broke down and did a face and body mask using fresh Greek yoghurt straight from the refridgerator.

And believe it or not, it actually worked. It really did. And I even had enough left to have a small snack before my friend arrived.

Of course, what I hadn't actually considered during this fiasco, was that it is so dark in the club that I was going to I could have been a fluorescent shade of beetroot and still no one would have noticed.

The important thing, of course, is that I experienced this so that I could pass this knowledge onto y'all. Greek yoghurt, kids! Miracle cure, I'm telling you.

Next week on Everything is Not Real: cure herpes with raw egg yolks (and make a tasty, high-protein omelet with the leftovers!)