The Cheater's Tan

I live in Florida. You'd THINK that would mean I'd just naturally sport that deep dark tropical tan, just from walking back and forth to my car in the mall parking lot, or something.

Not so.

Tanning in Florida closely approximates controlled (or uncontrolled, as the case may be) basting. In August, you need to rent gills.

While this price was not too high in my early twenties, the mid-thirties have taught me differently. Never mind cancer, death, and wrinkles that could hide TV remotes, it's the TIME factor that pretty much nixes the tanning concept for me. One needs hours upon hours over weeks upon weeks of leisure time to suffer the heat in pursuit of that proper marshmallow-brown (just before it spontaneously combusts.)

Which is why I've warmed up to "Sunless Tanning Products," the cheater's tan.

These goops have come a long way in the last 5 years. It used to be you needed a PhD and 6 arms to apply the stuff, and the aroma effectively shouted: rotting corpse. I could also take issue with "oopa loompa orange," but it hardly seems sporting.

Nowadays, you only need 3 or 4 post-graduate courses, and you're only stuck with a mild-by-comparison eau-du-B.O. for about 36 hours. Which, coincidentally, is about how long the fake tan lasts.

I've been experimenting extensively with different products, and can say with all authority that it was a rather idiotic waste of money. I detested the Nutrogena stuff the least - it comes in a nifty foam that's much nicer to apply, and ultimately turns a pleasing shade of "Doctor's Wife" tan, if you've the foresight to have skin that's every inch EXACTLY the same clinical moisture rating.

Having no elbows and knees also helps a lot. For evenness, not for application (I should have said.)

It's also very important to choose a product that dries quickly. Because as you're standing (like a fool) stark naked in a tub, slimed from tip to toe, this is usually when the bug-man arrives. Or your children bring their friends into the bathroom to ask if they can have some root beer. I would imagine.

Another important tip is that with your fabulous new tan, you really can't reasonably expect to go anyplace where the people have real-live tans. Because, trust me, they'll be able to spot you. Real tans give you fake-tan-radar, and there's much snobbery among the soon-to-die.

Maybe it's the brown-stained fingernails, or the brown blotches around the ankles, or the uniformly tanned underarms, or the smell (my God! The smell!) I prefer to think they're psychic. Just as I prefer to think that no one looks at the BACK of my hair, so I don't need to worry about how it looks.

But now I'm brown and buff 3 out of every 7 days, without all that pesky skin damage. People at work hardly know what to make of me - I change colors like that horse in Oz. "Hey! Must be Friday!  Susan's tan!"

I'm clockwork BROWN.

I persist simply because I've developed a blind belief that "tan" renders cellulite invisible. And I'll thank you people not to tell me anything different.

At least so long as the chemicals don't fry too many brain cells in my thong-avoidance lobe.