“Café au lait spots? Are you kidding?” I asked incredulously with my shirt gathered in my left hand to bare my stomach in the small doctors’ office in the Danna Center.

Dr. Kevin Lindsey looked baffled as he scanned the yellowed pages of an ancient dermatology encyclopedia. “That’s what it looks like to me. I mean, it looks like you got splashed with some coffee,” he said, getting up to examine the two small brown spots on my stomach once again. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know what you got. I’m sending you to a dermatologist.”

As I left the office with his referral in my hand, I scrutinized the small brown streak on my wrist, and I started to get worried. I had six of these marks, all on areas of my skin that were exposed to the sun. They were irregularly shaped and in random places, but they looked enough like premature sunspots to send me to the dermatologist.

The nurse walked in and asked that I show her the marks. As I did, I noticed that she was smiling. She asked how long ago they appeared, and I told her two weeks.

“Have you been out in the sun at all?” she asked.

Oh, no. “Yes,” I answered. “I went to the beach in Mississippi about two weeks ago, and they appeared a day or two later.”

“Were you drinking?”

“Yes.”

“Margaritas?”

“No.”

“How about Corona with lime?”

I raised my eyebrows. Was this woman a detective or a dermatologist?

“Yeah, actually.”

She gave a small laugh. Tapping on her clipboard, she said, “Well, there’s your problem. It’s a sun reaction to the lime. You must have somehow gotten the juice on you (not by doing body shots, mind you) and the sun stained it into your skin.”

She opened the door for the doctor. “Look, you have them on your tan line. You must have been adjusting your swimsuit when you had it on your fingers.”

The doctor glanced at my chart and then the splash mark – now clearly distinguishable – on my stomach.

“Oh yes, this is my favorite diagnosis. It’s so much fun,” she said, scribbling a prescription for me. “Some skin types are more susceptible to it than others. Just be more careful about what fun you’re having in the sun.”

I wasn’t aware that you can stain your skin, like you do your clothes, but now I’ll certainly be more careful around liquids of any kind in the sun – especially lime juice and café au lait.

Jordan Schneider is a communications junior from Manitou Springs, Colo.