Tan:30

Here shortly, I’ll be turning 30. The Big Three-O. And I believe there are certain things a man should do before he turns 30. I’m happy to say that I’m pretty close to achieving one of these elusive goals…I almost, almost, have my first tan. That’s right, you heard me, I am actually a slightly rosy shade of pink on one part of my stomach and both of my legs. This might be the closest I’ve ever come to not resembling an awful combination of Powder and Boo Radley.

There was a picture taken of me three years ago or so on a beach in the Virgin Islands. I’m lying there in the sand wearing red shorts, my head resting on my backpack. But to casually glance at that picture, you wouldn’t see me. I was (and remain) so pasty I’m indistinguishable from the color of the sand. It looks like someone left their shorts on the beach.

It was the summer of 2000. I had no job, was not enrolled in school, and had just discovered the joys of drinking very early in the afternoon and watching Office Space. I wore a threadbare and dirty shirt, every day, that read “Flippo for Governor” over the outline of the state of Alabama. I had time to kill, obviously, and spent most of it in a beach chair in my front yard in Tuscaloosa, AL. Since I’m bowlegged, or knock-kneed, or turkey legged, or a mix of all three, I only got sun on the inside of my legs. But for one magical month in that heady year of our Lord two-thousand and naught, a very small part of me was a bronzed God.

I’ve been to the pool twice this week. I, of course, got sunburned the first day. After a regime of aloe and lidocaine, however, I jumped back in (pun intended) on Monday. Slathered with sunscreen (50+), I posted up in the sunniest part with a plastic grocery sack full of ice and Miller High Life. And I’m not kidding, I look good.

Happy birthday to me.