Mestee Blogger

While we were driving home to Londonderry last weekend, I had a conversation with my sister last week that went something like this:

Me: Jeez, look at my legs...I'm white as a ghost.
Sarah: Yeah, you really are pale.
Me: I know. I've been thinking about, uh, tanning before we go to Maine on the Fourth.
Sarah: Umm. I guess that's okay. But you shouldn't tell anybody about it.

Sorry, Sarah.

The cat was let out of the proverbial bag when Hufton asked where I was on Friday between the time I called him and left a message to the time he called back just a few minutes later.

Me: Yeah, I was...busy. I was just, um, away from the phone.
Hufton: Oh, okay.
Me: Well, actually, I was tanning.
Hufton: Ree-hee-heally! Why did you go tanning?
Me: Because I --
Hufton: Because you're interested in getting skin cancer?
Me: No, because I'm going to be in Maine for a week, and I can't look like this.

I walked into Beach Bum Tanning Salon in Wellington Circle, and I swear I heard a record scratch. Most of the employees and clientele were females who looked a lot like this. I am decidedly not female, and look a little more like this. I tried to play it cool and act like I knew what I was doing, but that lasted about three seconds.

Tanning Girl: Bed or booth?
Mestee: Bed.
Tanning Girl: How much time do you want?
Mestee: Uh. What would you recommend?
Tanning Girl: We just changed the bulbs, so I'd say six minutes.

I'm glad I asked, because I definitely would have guessed something like a half hour, most likely requiring medical professionals to be called to the scene so they could peel me off of the tanning bed.

Tanning Girl: Do you know how to work the booth?
Mestee: Oh, yeah. Well, maybe you could tell me.

Tanning Girl had another one of her very tan co-workers lead me to the little room where my tanning bed was located. As soon as the girl left the room, I started reading the poster on the wall which listed safety tips.

TIP #1: Always make sure to wear eye protection.

Oh, man...I forgot to get goggles from them. I've already failed safety tip #1!

I walked back up to the front desk and told them I needed some eye protection. They handed me a piece of paper with two round yellow stickers on it. Hmmm. I got back to my room and tried to figure out my options for these stickers. I guessed that I was supposed to stick them over my eyes, but I wasn't sure how to go about doing this. I closed my eyes and stuck the gold stickers on my eyelids, then put my arms out in front of me like a blind man trying to find the tanning bed. Once I got in there, I was surprised that there was music being piped in and there were fans blowing. I was expecting thirty minutes in extreme heat with no music, so this was getting easier by the minute...although I guess I did expect to have vision. The fans started blowing off my eye stickers, so I started feeling the wall, looking for the dial to turn down the fans. I found the dial and turned it the wrong way (hey, I had my eyes closed!) which cranked the fans up to full speed, making my stickers flutter out of control. By the time I got the whole situation sorted out, my time was up. I exited the tanning bed looking not as much like a bronzed adonis as a guy that had golfed 9 holes in the midday sun.

I may be forced to take the entire week off from blogging, starting on July 4th. I'll be in a house in Kennebunkport which does not have any computers available. I'll be taking applications for a weeklong guestblogger to keep the site rolling.

Not only do Germans like David Hasslehof, but the also like sleeping in trees. I still think that this is the strangest hotel, though.
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