Perseverence + Vanity = Bad Karma

I am beyond white. Not like cracker white; Casper the Friendly Ghost white. After about two or three sessions of tanning beds, I gave them up the because I'm cheap and skin cancer isn't a good look. I'd like to look as far from a raisin as possible when I'm 60.

I thought about waiting for white to come back. Back in the 1800s it was posh to be fair-skinned! It was a sign of money and power to be pale! Only problem was the reason pale was associated with the previously mentioned money and power was because rich people owned slaves to work the fields. Their fair complexion represented their ability to force slaves into the fields instead of working the land themselves. Ummmm...ok. Forget 'money and power' white.

I wasn't about to renounce my efforts to look like I just got back from Spring Break in Cancun so I started to think outside the box. I heard about spray tanning so I asked at my hair salon and the owner said I would love it so much I would be addicted. I totally look like the kind of lesbian that gets addicted to expressions of vanity.

There were no preparation instructions from the salon so I went as is. As I continued my conversation at check in with the receptionists I learned there was a whole list of things I should have done: exfoliated, worn a bathing suit and left off my lotion and make-up. I should have known this was already a rough start. The receptionists assured me that they "never do any of the stuff on that list". Except for the fact that they probably don't pay near what I'm paying.

So I get into the spray tan room and it's a tiny room with a three-sided giant tent. Yeah, tent, like camping tent, tent. The spray tan girl introduces herself and is very sweet and professional. She goes through all of the preparation instructions and teaches me how to use this glue stick-looking thing. She instructs me to put it on my hands and feet as well as my nailbeds so they don't get too dark. I tell her that I didn't prepare in an undergarment sort of way, but she tells me they have a set of disposable bra and underwear. Perfect! Thank goodness! I didn't want to go home with bronzed underpants.

So she leaves the room and I start to prepare. I take out the disposable "underwear" that you can barely call underwear. It's like a see-through loin cloth about 2.5 inches wide with strings on the sides! It's way less than what Tarzan wears! WTF?!

I have to move quick because she's going to be back in a minute. I start to rub this glue stick on my hands and feet. She comes back in and gets started.

First of all, the spray tan solution is FREEZING! I'm chattering because I'm so cold. Then she moves me like Gumby; elbows out, hands down; elbows down, palms upside-down; my favorite is one leg forward, one leg back. My positioning was kind of like Venus de Milo's legs underneath the drapery. Except I have arms.

As I'm moving around in different positions my loin cloth is quickly crawling up my butt. The girl spraying me clearly didn't care because she spray-tanned the wedgie. I now have a semi-permanent wedgie tanned into my behind.

She finishes and I look like Soul Man from the 80's. If you don't know what Soul Man is, Google it. It's a lot funnier if you see it as opposed to me explaining it. I seriously looked like that. The salon assures me it will be lighter once I wash off the solution because it's setting for the next 6-8 hours.

After I wash it out, it lightens up a little bit, but my hands look ridiculously dark. I start to exfoliate and can't exfoliate enough. I'm scrubbing and scrubbing and it's just not doing anything. At one point I almost snack on my thumbs due to their resemblance to carrots.

By the time the wedding comes, it looks okay and at least the lighting does me some justice, thank goodness. I don't want to be the girl with the bad tan. As for spray tanning again, I'd rather be called translucent, Casper, or anything that exceeds whiter-than-white expectations than turn over my palms and be mistaken for an Oompa Loompa.