I can’t say enough good things about being across the street from a shopping/restaurant/retail complex by my work.  Working in the suburbs can blow because you can’t get to anything without driving so it’s nice to have an exception to this.  When I get the chance at lunch it’s the best place to take a little walk too since it’s one of those newer shopping complexes that are pedestrian-oriented and not just a box building with a giant asphalt parking lot that bows to the Almighty Vehicle.

On of the many nooks and crannies I hadn’t seen before has a sign (shown below) that caught my eye.  The bottom listing is for a Sizzle Tanning Salon.  I don’t know about the rest of you but to me I don’t want to associate “sizzle” with “tanning”.  To me that means “inadvertent second degree burns”.  When I think of skin sizzling, it usually means a person is running out of a burning building and their body fat is on fire.

Obviously this Pale Blue Scot doesn’t ever bother with tanning.  I finally learned the futility for anyone with northern European descent in trying to get a tan.  Our people will a) burn like pleather in a 400 degree oven and b) we never hold onto any tan we actually get.  A month later, any skin tint is gone. 

I finally learned to embrace that in my college years when, one summer in New Jersey while visiting a college friend for the weekend, I laid out on the beach to get a tan.  Sunblock SPF-Whitey was applied to me but I fell asleep WITH MY HAND ON MY STOMACH.  Not only did I have horrifically burned skin from that day, but the white outline of my hand was ingrained onto my stomach for weeks after that.  It was around than that I truly embraced my Scottish heritage for what it was and never tried to tan again.  If my skin does get browner on my arms in the summer time, it’s not by any attempt on my own.

My daughters will curse their father’s heritage for a while when they’re trying to be tan and cool as a teenager but hopefully they too will realize the beauty of pale skin at some point in their early adulthood and embrace the concept of not looking like the leather-skinned handbags disguised as Florida senior citizens.