Charlie VS The Duct Tape

Say what you want about it- but I like tanning.

I’m not hard core about it by any stretch, and the fact is I am still quite pale. I enjoy the actual act of tanning in a bed- listening to music, a fan blowing on you, being forced to close your eyes for a 5 to 10 minute stretch… and no one is there to scream “MOM!!!!!!”

Yep, I like the solitude of tanning.

And I don’t go often, but last week when I saw my white/blue legs in the full on sunlight at the YMCA, next to Lee Ann’s freshly “Florida vacationed” legs, I decided I should get a little color.


And I debated about a spray tan. Especially after watching the Hussy’s educational vlog about “Spray tan for a chubby girl.”

But I went old school. Cause I wanted an excuse to get out of the house 3 times a week. Maybe 4, tops. And only for a month.

Cause we all know that tan fat looks way better than pale fat.

Here’s the thing about tanning though. I have major hangovers.

Not like “I partied all night” hangovers. No, no, no. It’s the “I’ve had 3 kids and gravity now owns my chest” hangovers.

In otherwords, cause I tan butt nekked, when I lay on my back without a cross yer heart, the girls fall to the side and cover 50% of the tops of my arms. Or if I lift my arms, I get these wonderful little tan lines of the sides of my torso that look something like this.


Tres bella, jah?

And something had to be done. Something DRASTIC.

There are 3 things every girl needs in her toolbox. A high heeled shoe (to work as a hammer and is great for smashing bugs), a nail file (a stand in for sandpaper and can be used as a screwdriver) and DUCT TAPE.

And for a problem this floppy, duct tape was the answer.

My girls have a healthy relationship with duct tape. Being a theatre nerd, I have taped them down on many occasions. To dance, to bind, to cover “headlights”…. Me and duct tape go WAY BACK.

So I walked into the tanning place with my keys and MP3 player in one pocket, and a roll of uber trendy tyedyed duct tape in the other. And I got a room.

Making sure the door was locked tightly, I stripped down to nothingness, got my roll of DT out, laid in the bed, and went to work.

RRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!

Got one piece of tape off the roll. Normally duct tape doesn’t seem loud when I use it at home, cause my house sounds like grand central station. But there in the tanning salon that day, you could have heard a pin drop. Or someone in the next tanning bed to your left giggle.

I applied the piece of tape strategically, across the “headlights” and over the sides. But immediately I recognized that there are some pliability issues, and the parts of the girls that weren’t taped were still flopping over.

Cause I kinda look like this…

So. I was going to need a bigger piece of tape.

RRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(More giggling from bed next door)

This time I laid the tape on in a diagonal position. Which meant I would need one more piece to go the other way.

RRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!

From bed next door in a still giggly voice “That’s going to hurt to take off!”

(Because apparently every woman recognizes the sound of her own baby crying, can hear from a mile away where a great shoe sale is going on, and knows the sound duct tape makes.)

Finally I was ready to tan.

And 10 minutes of uninterrupted bliss was just what I needed.

When the bed went off, I was left with a dilemma. Do I take the tape off here? Or wait till I get home? The pros of waiting till I got home were it would be less noisy, and I could take a shower and loosen it up. The cons would be that I would have to carry my bra out the front door of the tanning salon and would have very odd looking cleavage under my shirt.

I opted to remove it right there.

And I went for the quick method.

I grabbed hold of each side of one strip (the first piece I applied, meaning there were 2 other pieces on top of that strip) and YANKED.

“OOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW”

The problems were 2 fold. Or 2 taped.

A. The other pieces of tape on top of the one I pulled were stuck really good.

B. My nipples were not wanting to come off of the tape. I’m assuming because there is no hair to soften the blow. They were stuck.

I chose to deal with the other pieces of tape first, and pulled them off fast and furious.

“YYYYYOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW! HOLY HECK THIS HURTS!!!!”

Problem A was solved, and now I had to deal with stuck nipples.

Immediately I remembered that I had this issue once before in the past. And my solution for it was to take a piece of tissue and put it there BEFORE applying tape. Which meant I was going to have to bite the bullet and go for it.

If you are a gentleman and still reading this blog, now is when you need to look away. (Who am I kidding? All the boys dropped out after the picture of the old lady and are now googling if their wives are really going to look like that one day.)

The nips were STUCK. Really Really STUCK.

So I pulled. And I yanked. It was like a booby taffy pulling session in there.

And I learned that my nipples have a 5 inch stretch threshold. Right about the time I was thinking I was going to scream, the tape finally came off.

ON ONE SIDE.

So I had to repeat the process on the other side. And it hurt just as bad as the left side.

I wadded up the duct tape, threw it all into the little garbage can in the room (and my tape filled half the tiny can) got dressed and flew out the door.

Not surprisingly, there was a lady talking to the front desk girl, looking at lotions. Until I walked out, that is. Then she had no problem staring at me and grinning.

Sometimes, a person needs to look stupidity straight in the eyes.