Tan Lines

Our annual pilgrimage to sunny Florida is a little over a week away and I am psyched. Nothing like basking in the sun for a week and then coming back home to find the remnants of winter have passed and spring has sprung. We have been making this trip for years and it's just become part of who we are. When April rolls around you'll find us in Orlando.

As part of the routine for getting ready to make our trek to the land of sunshine I always get some 'fake bakes' in so I don't burn in the tropical sun. For the past few years I've gone to an ultrabronze tanning bed. The max tanning time in an ultrabronze bed is 30 minutes and you start at that time with your first appointment. These beds give you a awesome tan in about 3 appointments and you never burn. They've been great. I'd start my tanning appointments 3-4 days before we'd leave and I'd have a good base tan that was only enhanced by the Florida sun once we arrived. The downside to ultrabronze tanning is the price, $17 a pop.

I decided to be a little more frugal this year and opt for just a regular tanning bed. The place I chose had a BOGO on tans so I bought 5 and got 10. I started tanning last Sunday as I figured the regular bed would take longer. The ole tan was coming on pretty good until yesterday. I arrived at my 5:30 appointment and was ushered right to my reserved bed. I got all lotioned up and layed down on the ever so comfortable hard plastic bed (That was one other thing I liked about ultrabronze tanning is that the bed were regular mattresses). There is always a hand towel folded up laying on the bed that I usually put under my head. After I turned the bed on and layed back down I couldn't feel the towel under my head. I didn't want to risk losing any potential tanning time and sit up to find it so I just shrugged it off and settled into my 13 minutes of heat.

When the bed shut off and I got up I found that the towel was under my back. I didn't think anything about that until I got out of the shower this morning and happened to notice my back in the mirror. Yep, you guessed it. A gi-normous big white square inbetween my shoulder blades. Oh sure, I like to brag about having a tan line, who doesn't! But I don't think I'd want to show off a big white square in the middle of my back as a prize tan line.

Next time I'll risk loosing a few precious minutes of tanning to find the towel.....yah think!