The Giant Carrot, A Corpse and Ha-cha-cha-cha

Have your spare knickers handy because I'm sure you're about to ruin the pair that you're wearing in excitment...It's time for another entry where I share my vast knowledge with you!

Even before I was (officially) made your Overlord(ess), I'd shared instructions on how to keep a relationship, start a blog and to avoid writing horrible smut.  Since I'm (officially) your Overlord(ess), I take my job very seriously and feel it's my duty to be a bossy prat guide you through life's little obstacles.

In honour of Memorial Day weekend (Like freedom?  Thank a Veteran.), a time when people are outside, in the pool, grilling and whatnot, I'm going to talk to you all about skin cancer, and how to avoid it.

There are three levels of skin cancer: basal, squamous and malignant melanoma.  Malignant melanoma is the one that you really need to worry about, but the other two aren't pleasant either since they cause tissue destruction which if left untreated can sometimes lead to nerve damage.  My great-grandmother had squamous cell skin cancer a number of years ago, but it was when my grandmother and then my mom had to have basal cell cancer removed from their skin that I figured I had better stay the hell out of the sun.  My health wasn't worth having a tan.

Yup.

I confessed my paleness a while ago--remember this?

Oh who the fuck am I kidding, I decided to stay out of the sun because I'm extremely narcissistic and I want to avoid the premature aging that comes as a result of sunbathing.  The thing that blows though is that while I'm extremely pale {Thank you so much, Irish genes}, I never burned {Thank you so much, Lenape and Turkish genes!}  I could get a nice tan, and the best part was that it would last for-bloody-ever.  For example, in 2003 I went to Hawaii, got a kickass tan and a year later someone asked me if I had just got back from vacation in reference to the still highly visible tan line left by my watch band.  It was when that tan finally faded, some time in 2005, and I started fucking glowing because I'm so pale, that I decided to enter the world of sunless tanning.  If you ever decide to enter this world, then just drop your pride right at the door because you will most likely look like a dumbass at some point during your journey.  Luckily though, I'm here to help tip the odds in your favor of surviving the sunless tanning process with a monicum of self-esteem.

The first time that I applied sunless tanner I used a cheaper brand product.  I'm a huge bargain shopper, but apparently sunless tanner is one of the few things were you get what you pay for.  The result of the cheap-o sunless tanner was a condition that I have come to call "Orange Soul Glow Syndrome".  You might have seen it elsewhere, in fact I hear that it's epidemic in Miami.  I myself do not fancy looking like a low-class whore, so that bottle of Instant Skank went right into the trash.
Lesson one:  Don't buy the cheap stuff.

Then there was the "OMG-Is-That-Contagious Affair". 

The problem with a lot of tanners is that they absorb clear so you can't see where you have applied them to your skin and it's very easy to miss a spot.  This is especially true when you are applying this shit yourself and have to contort yourself like a Cirque du Solei performer to reach the various places of your body.  One time, I must have been really tired or just sloppy but I missed so many places on my body that it looked like I had Mange, or Vitaligo at best.  I have since learned though that there are tanners with a bronzer in them so that you can see where you've applied the tanner.
Lesson two: Use a tanner with a bronzer.

Many tanners claim to be "fast drying", "non greasy" or "quickly absorbed".

Bull.  Shit.

I was ridiculously pumped to find this picture, by the way.

One time, I had finally found a tanner that was pretty good, but despite the claims of its expeditious nature, it took forever to dry.  One evening I put the tannner on, but by the time it was dry, I was too tired to get in the shower to wash the excess off, so I just went to sleep.  Now, this occured during the Stepford Wife Era and my former father-in-law controlled the thermostat, so it was usually hot as fucking hell in my bedroom.  As a result I awoke the next morning to find that I had sweated through the night, and there was now a bronze body-shaped stain all over the sheets.  It looked like the scene from "Psycho" where you see the bedroom where the mom had died and the mattress is all dark and sunken.  I called this episode the "Did-Someone-Die-There Horror".
Lesson three: Get a divorce so you can control your own bloody thermostat.

This...is just so wrong.

Once I found a tanner with a bronzer, and one that really did dry quickly, I would usually apply the tanner on Friday evening, sleep with it through the night to get the full benefit and then wash it off the next morning.  There was one time, though, that I came home late on Friday, so I ended up applying the tanner the next morning.  Once again the summer heat, and a thermostat set at 85 degrees, conspired against me.  I was sweating, which was bad enough of itself, but I was also drinking a lot of water.  What finally happened was that, by taking many drinks from my glass of water, I had washed off the tanner just above my lip and it resulted in my face being tan except for a white area around my lips.  This was brilliant because, not only did I look stupid, but I was able to offend everyone by portraying a racist stereotype at the same time.  I particularly loved how my ex would randomly yell "Mammy!  Ha-cha-cha-cha!" at me.  Actually, that's one of the few things from that time that really was pretty funny.
Lesson four: Get a divorce already so you can control your own bloody thermostat!

There is also the option of avoiding all of these mishaps and having yourself professionally fake-baked.  However even if you go the route of professional sunless tans, you cannot avoid the requisite looking like a dumbass aspect of getting a sunless tan.  Unless you can afford to have your tan applied by airbrush, you will have to get into a telephone booth-like contraption and do a ridiculous chicken dance consisting of flapping your arms and bending your legs up and down while sunless tanner is ejaculated from the walls.

Yes, sunless tanning is fun.  Because who doesn't like walking around like a giant fucking carrot, or dancing while you get a body-length money shot in a phone booth?

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

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