My second guest blog post comes from a co-worker of mine, L. I know it’s a long entry, but it’s a hilarious one at that. I was in tears of laughter by the end of it.

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I have been following Nancy’s fancy blog now for a few months. I have to say I enjoy her witty comments, and find her fashion repertoire quite enjoyable. Her opinion on the items she tests and tries are informative and interesting. So, when I ventured out to the Tanning Salon last month for my first Mystic Tan EVER …I just knew this story had to be shared on her page! What better way to showcase my story, then during “guest blog” week!!
…Enjoy…!

Thursday November 25. Hmm, 1 month exactly until Christmas, yes! I could do a much needed jump on pressie shopping, hmm. Well its not Wednesday so I couldn’t chalk this listful feeling up to “hump day” blues…but I did feel rather like I needed a pick me up. One that even shopping couldn’t fix (really.) So, as a flake of snow floated by the window, and I reminisced of warm days passed…It struck me.

I needed a lovely warm bronzing!! That’s right, a tan.

Now, not just any “tan”, lets face it…this pasty skin hasn’t been sunkissed in atleast 3 months, so the tanning bed would just plain take too many visits. No, I needed instant glorification.
Well hello Mystic Tan…!

So, I called to see if I needed an appointment “no”, oh great! Ill be right over.

So, I get to The Salon (where I held a membership this summer for the odd tan needed prior to vacationing) I walk in and oh the horror…someone is heading in to the one and only Mystic  Tanning Room. The nerve…Doesn’t she know I snuck over here on my lunch from work!

So, I tell the attendant I’m here for the same thing, and I joked with her about having called to see if I needed an appoint ( yes, I do hope she picked up on my tiny hint of sarcasm) “oh”, she says as she snaps her gum, “I thought that girl was you hun” . Argh.

I wait, and I sit, and I have to dig my watch out of my purse, because as a time saver on the way over there I ditched all my jewlery so not to have spray tan lines. “Yipes” I’ve already used up 25 minutes of my lunch hour, and Im not even in there yet.

Stay calm…your turn will come.

So, after what felt like forever (through probably only 10 minutes) The other girl, who presumable should have been me appears. Pft, she doesn’t even look tanned! Ok, so my turn. “Just let me go mop the room hun” the attendant luls at me as she strolls back down the hall.

‘Good greif, is everyone in slow motion” I think to myself.

Finally!! I’m in. So, she shows me the granny net im to wear over my hair, and then proceeds to pump 50 or more squirts (seriously)of cream into her hand to demonstrate how to use the barrier cream on your palms and knuckles feet and nails.

‘ok, I get it…Im a visual learner, but good gravy…this is the limit’ Then she explains how to stand with arms slightly outstretched and legs widely apart. Eyes shut, mouth closed, and then be sure to turn when the spraying briefly stops. Ok, Ok..I think Ive got it.

She leaves, and I undress in Nascar speed, ok…naked, now with the hair net. Poof. Ok, now with the palm lube. I need lots of it I assure myself. So, now that Im freezing cold, hands and feet iced like a cake, and my hair coiffed in my blue hairnet…I attempt to open the door to bronzing effortlessly. Yeah right. How do you get a pressure latched door open when your hands are full of slippery goop.

Ok, whatever, Im blond…but not ‘that’ blond. I figured it out. Ahh, Im in.

Oh, lord. How dismal it is in here. Dark. Cavernous. Cold. Like a Catacomb with 4 nozzles pointing at me like a firing squad from some psy-fi movie. And me, in my skivvies and helpless with my hands buttered and slippery. I presume I was expecting airbrushed designs of an exotic palm lined beach, maybe a heat lamp sun or atleast an image of the tanned beauty whom I should resemble upon emerging. No, just dim light, and cold steel.

Ok, back to it. There it is, the green light that will ‘officially’ start this Mystic Mission.

So, I do as the attendant instructed. I jab at the button, then jump back into place on the cold silver oval platform I’m to adhere to.
I wait. Nothing. What! I jab at it again. Oh, no. Could this be!!! Oh, don’t even tell me Im now going to have to shimmy, feet caked in goop, naked, and still freezing, all to call to the gum chewing attendant who by now is likely well into her sales pitch with the “supposed me” at the front desk.

No, try again.

Ok, so this time I actually use the point of my finger, greasy or not, and insert it directly into the middle of the button. Success!

Ok, quick, jump back, skin goose bumped and hands (now dripping my barrier cream) at the ready. I close my eyes, seal my mouth… I peak out of one tightly clenched eyelid. The firing squad bursts into action. PSSSSHHH! OH, the shock! I knew it was coming and yet, I am oh so unprepared. When do I breath! Spurting breaths in between quick revolving spray moving up and down my body.

And as fast as it fired at me, it ceased. Ok…quick…flip, switch, just turn around.

And then in the hollow fogged tomb of misty spray I wait. PSSSHHH! Again, with the cold wet mystic war paint that I have offered myself into. My mind races with the brief time frame I have left. Will it look ok, will it be even. I don’t want streaks after all. Should I bend over a bit, so to be sure my derrière is evenly spritzed!? Yes, that sounds good. Oh, goodness…not so good, stand up…quick.

(Ok. note to self, the inner rump need not ever be tanned, duh!) And then, as previously told, the artillery halts, and there is silence.
I open my eyes, I see fog and haze everywhere, lord I still can’t breath! The door, head to the door… With my hands still creamed and my vision blurred, my mind is whirling from lack of oxygen, and the putrid stench of sour grapes. I can think of nothing but to be out in the fresh air of the grey dismal November day I left outdoors.
I push open the hatch with my arm in true battering-ram style.

As the attendant suggested I closed the mystic vault immediately as I descend. (and now I know why, ‘gasp’ the room was filling like a gas attack!) I  gather myself, breathing in air like a starved baby bird.

Now, it’s a race against time to get this cream off, then shed my hair net only to bunch it up and use it as my “blending aid” and rub the left over ‘mist’ into my body. Leftover mist!? Oh dear. How is this blending and rubbing any different or easier then the DIY kits!?  It is then that I approach the mirror to remove the cap. Oh – my – word.
I am blue. Not Avatar blue, but a definite tinge of smurf.

So, as I focus frantically on dabbing the aqua myst drops out of my eyebrows, don’t even get me started on the 5’oclock “ myst shadow” that had appeared surrounding my mouth. Again I utter, what have I gotten myself into! Alright. Blue myst blended on face, arms torso…On to the legs. What! Sufferin’! My tiny myst droplet’s have given In to the laws of gravity! Oh the horror. Two long thin blue tinged lines running down my left calf.

Like a glaring varicose vein. Oh heck no! So, I rub, and I scrub, and it ‘kind of’ blends in. please, let it blend in. Did I mention I will be donning a bikini in a few days time, hence the whole superb idea for this mystic mess.

Ok, well. I’m done, I guess. It’s as good as it is presumably going to get. What were once frigid goosebumps, are now red patches of heated fury from my not so dainty blending.
But, I step back and begrudgingly glance in the mirror one last time before I dress and head to the desk to give that gal a piece of my mind.
Hey, wait. Could it be…Its actually not that bad. No more cotton candy crystals, no more goop, and hair net. I look relatively …good. I even appear to have a small hint of glistening light colour. Not the bronzed beauty she promised, but…I could get used to this.

So, I dress, and walk with a bit of a skip in my step to my car, and head back to work.

As expected, but to my dismay…no one notices. Oh the shame, my $25 hard earned cash has gone to waste.

I sit, I work, the clock ticks on….I work away at my computer. And then a member comes in, some few hours later. What’s this, he furrows a brow at me. “Have you been south..?” he says.

Oh boy! Lord love you Mr. Smith. NO I haven’t, but my venture surely felt about that extensive. I chuckle and tell him “I went to the tanning salon”, not going into detail that I did a “mystic tan”. But the lovely man has made my afternoon for sure.

Of course I rush to the washroom to check in on things… Ooooh! I’m tanned. Yes, I am definitely darker than the fair skinned gal who came in this morning. I feel satisfied. And, luck of luck…it all looks quite even, no messy orange streaks like the DIY kit after all!

So, I head home to be greeted at the door by Hubbie, who notices right away. “Yep” I reply… “I’ve been tanning”. ‘Very nice’ he says. Oh Success, I’ve gotten approval from the Mr.
After rendering a look see in the mirror several times that evening, I decided to call it a night.

I curl into bed and am pleasantly pleased with my venture. I went out on a limb, I tried something new, and I seem to have been successful at my plight.

I wake in the morning, some 7 hours later. No mystic mess has rubbed off on my white sheets, so that is relieving. Yawning, I saunter into my en-suit, and again “oh-my-gawd!!!”  I cant help but smile, which makes it all the more hysterical as my brown skin has made my teeth look a brilliant white. Even my eyes look extra bright!

I stand back, and sigh. At 29, and 2 kiddies later, I am certainly no Malibu Barbie. But, as I count my blessings, I smirk to myself …I am happy to accept the title of Mystic Malibu Mama anyday!

– L. McMomsie