a darker shade of pasty white

I've given up on any self-improvement activities that require actual exercise. So in an effort to achieve self-improvement with the least amount of work possible, I've decided to finally jump on the band wagon and try the tanning bed solution. Besides, I figured, darker colors are supposed to be slimming. So, even if I'm unable to get thinner in a 'real' sense, I could tan and appear thinner in a 'fake' sense. All in all, it seemed like a fool-proof plan...not considering the increased potential for skin cancer, that is.

With towel in hand, I headed out to a nearby tanning salon. I signed up for a 'summer six-pack special' of tanning bed time, feeling that a half-dozen 20 minute sessions would be more than enough to give me a tan dark enough to produce the slimming effects that I was looking for. And once my credit card was swiped, I headed toward an open room.

I closed the door, adjusted the fan, and found a radio station that I felt would be optimal toward my tan achievement. I undressed, briefly considering a full-body, commando style tan session, but decided to keep my skivvies in place. I wasn't sure what rays were going to be shot out toward me once inside the tanning bed, but felt that certain private areas would best be kept shielded from them...not that a thin layer of cotton would provide much protection, but it was better than nothing, I figured.

I carefully wiped down the tanning bed, set the timer, and settled in, ready to bake and emerge a nice shade of toasty brown. But as I lay there, I realized that I had completely forgotten to get those little plastic glasses that true tan-bedders wear. Would my eyes be safe, I wondered? Would they sizzle inside my head like little eggs in boiling water, leaving me with hard boiled eyeballs? Or would I gain some type of superhuman x-ray vision? Or was I perhaps being a bit over-dramatic? Was a 20 minute, one time tanning bed session enough to ruin my retinas? I doubted that it would, but made a mental note to buy some proper tanning eyewear before returning for the second session.

I settled back in but began to wonder if I had wiped off the tanning bed properly. I mean, potentially hundreds of people lay in this thing every week...many of which probably lay here naked. In the same bed that I was currently laying in. Here I was, laying in a tanning booth that many naked people had lain before me, and the only protection I had was a thin spray from a bottle found atop the paper towel dispenser. How much liquid was needed to properly kill all of these naked people germs that had been left behind, I wondered? And could I really trust that the stuff the tanning salon owners put into the bottle was adequate enough to kill all these naked person germs? Maybe they watered the stuff down to save on their tanning bed cleaner costs.

This thought worried me, and soon after I could feel all the millions of tiny bacteria from countless naked people crawling all over me...as if they had all been laying in wait for me to come in and begin construction on hundreds of little bacteria suburbs all over my body. My skin was crawling as I imagined them driving in their little bacteria cars to and from their little bacteria shopping malls. It was all simply too much to bear, so I jumped up from the tanning bed. The session had lasted all of 45 seconds.

I quickly toweled off all the bacteria, sending their economic boom into a sudden depression in the process, and glanced in the mirror to see if any results were visible from my first tanning bed experience. I still looked pretty pale, but with the proper amount of squinting I looked a slightly darker shade of pasty white. Not nearly enough, however, to produce a slimming effect.

And with tans now being out of the question, I now plan on purchasing several black T-shirts.