posted by erin on Jan 29
I decided to tan my pasty body before our holidays. I’ve come to realize over the years that having some color on your skin has a number of valuable perks. 1) it makes the fleshiness appear less fleshy! 2) You don’t burn to a crisp the first 24 seconds that you lie baking in the hot, tropical sun. 3) Your white bathing suit doesn’t make you look sickly.
As I’m basking in the tube of sunniness I wonder to myself what on earth I’m doing lying on a whole lot of hot, hot light bulbs! I mean, seriously, what do we think when creating this stuff? Convenient, yes! Stupid, perhaps a bit.
I have to admit to getting a little cocky about the whole business. You see, I’m not fair skinned by any means. I walk out into the sunshine and VIOLA, I’m tanned. It’s like insta-tanning for me. Usually. Apparently I’ve become a tad on the white side this winter. I’m pretty sure -50 degree weather just sucks the color right out of your skin. But I don’t think about this, I just go on past experiences and I’ve never had a problem with tanning beds. I usually start at 8-10 minutes right off the hop and I have no issues with burning. Not so this time. I started at 6 minutes. Got home, looked in the mirror and scoffed at the tanning bed gods. There wasn’t even a hint of color. What kind of joke was this?! I decided I would go with my original thought and hit it up for 10 minutes the second time around.
Yeah, yeah…I know. Increase by a minute or 2 not 4. I paid the price. The aforementioned fleshy parts of my back pasted against the hot light bulbs was not a good combo. Four hours later I found 2 red racing stripes down my back.
But, lucky for me, my skin doesn’t stay burnt long and by this morning, no burn. Just a little bit of color where there was none before. I still don’t think I’ll be jumping the gun like that again. I think we’ll just stick with 10 minutes for another session and see how it goes.
And no worries I’ll be wearing a lot of sunscreen on our trip. I don’t need to come home looking like a piece of bacon. :D
January 29th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Yes, bacon is for eating, not for modeling ourselves after.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
i once burnt myself soooooooo bad my skin bubbled!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i could barely wear clothes for weeks after that. not good.
January 29th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
people with tanned skin are better than the rest of us. it’s scientifically proven that the sun increases your goodability by a factor of 10. well done.
January 30th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Love it.
What made me laugh the most was the sad reality that back in the day (before I convinced myself that pasty glow-in-the-dark skin was sophisticated, hehe), I tanned three times a week for MONTHS and MONTHS and never made it up past 10 minutes at a time.
Plus, I’m trying to imagine ERIN with a SUNBURN. It makes me giggle. If you need any tips for soothing burnt flesh, I’m your girl.