Tanning

Romeo. Bjorn.

I am part of a persecuted minority. My good friend (and token lib friend) Jamie would disagree greatly with me on this seeing as how I am a WASP male. I'm as WASP'y as you can get most likely. Here is the thing.

I am white. Not only in the way we have classified race in the world we live in but quite literally white. Actually I'm alternating between dark red and white at the moment. I was not made for the sun. I was made for the darkness and the mountains. But that is another topic for another day.


Most of my life I have felt the pressure to be darker. I remember going to the beach for the first time and playing on the white sand beaches of Gulf Shores in my big floppy hat (because that is how I rolled even then). Two tan people walked by and commented on my whiteness like I could not hear. Apparently pale children do not have the capacity to hear or feel.


"Did you see how white that kid was?"


From that moment on I hated my skin color. I would see all of the people I grew up with playing in the sun and turning a golden tan while I playing in the sun and turned a deep tomato followed by days of peeling my skin off like little pieces of Joseph-Jerky followed by a few more freckles and no change in skin color.


I have a theory why tan people make fun of pale people. It has to do with Vikings. Yes Vikings. Somewhere in their tan subconscious they remember the Vikings. The Vikings sailed down from the north when the ice broke up enough to get out of the fjords and terrorized the pretty people of the south. These pale men with their big beards and bigger axes looked at the pretty people of southern Europe and despised them for their warmth and melanin. They boiled out of those long boats like a wave of pale justice. Why you may ask? I think they originally came peacefully but one of the tan people (let's call him Romeo) asked one of the pale people (let's call him Bjorn) why they were so white. And we all know how he said it (just a little condescending). Bjorn heard the tone of voice and takes his axe and splits Romeo's head open like a tan melon. And so the carnage began.


Here is one of the truths about tanning. In the long run it makes you look like a piece of shoe-leather.
Here is how it should be. Tan people: Quit looking down your tan little nose at the significant portion of the population that cannot tan. They may be carrying an axe.