Originally Posted: 2007-11-01 15:11 (no longer live)
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An open letter from your tanning salon owner


Okay, I am going to start this rant out by admitting a few things that you are probably already thinking. I know tanning is vain. I know that by owning a tanning salon I am probably thought of as a vacuous and plastic vanity Barbie who doesn’t know her ass from a “reality” special on VH1. I used to feel the same way. Incidentally, this is not true, I am an intelligent college graduate who enjoys being her own boss and lucked in to a successful business that was already well established when I bought it. That being said, I have a number of things and people that I would like to address, and I think I will start with the obvious.

1. To the people who tell me I’m peddling cancer, okay, I get that. I’ve never claimed that tanning is safe, or good for you, except when I say that a little vitamin d is healthy every once in awhile, and can really help with things such as psoriasis and seasonal affective disorder. Now that we know my feelings on the safety of my product, let me just say thank you to people who feel the need to come up and shout it in my face on a daily basis. Thank you falling down drunk girl with coke rimming your nostrils and a flaming Marlboro Red in your hand. Thank you for pointing out how dangerous tanning is. I can see you are doing everything in your power to ensure your future health. And I applaud you for it.

2. To the girl who came in to the salon with a yeast infection. I get it. I know from personal experience that the doctor told you that exposure to sunlight would help heal your little condition more quickly. I even get why you wanted to come to the tanning salon to get that exposure. It can be hard to find places to sun your naked beaver, what with nosy neighbors and public indecency laws, and I actually find your method to be rather reasonable. What I don’t, however, understand is why you decided to bring your box of Monistat 7 into the salon with you, and then leave it in full view, applicator and all, on top of the garbage in the can. Really? This didn’t seem a tad embarrassing to you? I mean didn’t you think I would notice these rather obvious, not to mention disgustingly offensive objects resting atop a mountain of baby wipes? Objects which were not there after previous clients who used that bed that day, making it glaringly obvious that you were the culprit? Could you not have perhaps, oh I don’t know, packed your trash? Or maybe wrapped them up in said baby wipes to hide them? Or at least shoved them under the other trash so I wouldn’t have to conjure up a visual of your leaking, itchy vagina shoved up towards the nice clean acrylic of my bed? Just a thought.

3a: To the people who want to bring someone in the room with them when they are tanning. Wait, what? Are you so insecure that you can’t even be alone in this strangely compromising situation? First off it’s totally illegal, and secondly it is dangerous. You may be wearing protective eyewear, but chances are your “guest” is not. Plus, I don’t really need a couple in the room together. I don’t want to hear it and I don’t want my other customers to think this place doubles as a brothel. I know, I know, I’m such a bitch, but I’m sure you understand. Oh you don’t? You are going to go somewhere else? Well good riddance to you then. Try the whorehouse at the edge of town. They actually encourage this type of behavior.


3b: Okay, I didn’t mean to have two sections to this problem, but I think that the story I’m about to tell you warrants it’s own paragraph. To the woman who brought her six-month-old child in and wanted to take her in the room with her while she tanned. WTF? Of course I understand that you are not going to actually “Put her in the bed with you”, as you so eloquently put it, but that is not a safe place for a child. Do you really think she will close her eyes the whole time she is in there? Do you really think that will help? There is a lot of ambient light that escapes the bed, and I don’t think you want to burn your child’s retinas. Now I really didn’t want to have to baby-sit your kid while you were in there, but I will in a situation like this, and you will be fucking lucky if she hasn’t been turned over to child protective services by the time your fifteen minutes are up. Fuck. P.S., thanks for fucking changing her diaper in the room and then throwing that shitty thing in the tiny garbage can. I understand that the dumpster outside is all of twenty feet away, and a real nuisance to get to. So by all means, just leave it in there to stink the joint up and don’t bother to mention it to me at all. At least you had the brains to bury it under the other garbage unlike some fuckwads. XOXO.

4. To the person who peed in the garbage can in the room. OMG. Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t even really know how to start on this one. I know what it’s like to have to go really bad, I do. I don’t think there is a person in this world that doesn’t. And I understand that you are naked and in the middle of your tanning session and don’t really want to get dressed, turn the bed off, run to the toilet and then have to get undressed and resume your tanning session. But seriously? Wouldn’t that be preferable to pissing in my trashcan? I mean, the room is tiny and so is the can, and I don’t even know how you pulled off such a logistically challenging feat in the first place. And I get that we were busy that day, and maybe you thought I wouldn’t notice or know who you are, but there were only two of you in there on that particular day, and now I feel weird when either one of you comes in. And trust me, I know it was embarrassing for you, and therefore you couldn’t explain to me what you had done, but imagine how I felt when I went to dump the can into another and ended up with pee all over my hands, arms and carpet. I cried for a long time. And luckily some sweet young kid came in at just that moment and took care of the situation for me out of the goodness of his heart because he felt so sorry for me, or else I might have tracked you both down and tortured you until I found out who did it. And then peed on you. Oh, and to my friends who tried to convince me it was just Mountain Dew. It wasn’t. Being drenched in someone else’s pee is a memorable and rare experience, and the sweet young guy and myself are both positive that it was, in fact, urine. So thanks for that.

5. To the people who come in wearing an outfit and leave missing a part of it, wtf? How do you enter a place wearing two socks and leave with only one? Aren’t you like, “wait, my one foot is cold and I’m not sure why”? And why is it always the most disgustingly dirty and rank sock in the whole world? And why should I have to touch it to throw it in the garbage? And how in the world did you manage to not notice it sitting in the middle of the room when you gathered up your stuff to leave? My favorite was the girl who left her sports bra here, that was a fun one to deal with. And the underwear in the garbage can? Classy, and enjoyable. Thanks. Much appreciated.

6. To the new guy that signed up for his first time, and when I tried to put him in the front room insisted that he really likes the one in the back. The far back, furthest away from the main lobby. Do you really think you don’t instantly stand out as a pervert? And thanks for the animal noises that were emanating from your room the entire time. I went ahead and had one of the boys next door come over and wait with me until you left. We had a good time making fun of you and letting everyone else in the parking lot know what you were doing while you were in there. Yep, that’s why so many people were standing around staring at you when you left. I was not however, stoked on having to clean up the bed after you left. I took extra towels in, careful not to touch the one you had “used”, and then threw them all away immediately after cleaning the bed. To you, hairy, disgusting man who likes to masturbate in tanning salons, I have only one true thanks to give you. Thanks for never coming back again. I would have felt the need to call the police on you. And that wouldn’t have been fun for any of us.

7. Finally, to the fake, pretentious So-Cal sluts that come in looking every bit the embodiment of a true tanning aficionado, thanks for acting like such a cunt to me. Thanks for pointing out that I am not that tan, and that I don’t look the part of a tanning salon owner, and that my jeans are ripped, that I have dark hair-not skanky platinum blonde, or fake tits, or I’m reading a book that wasn’t assigned to me in class, or I’m knitting, or whatever, non-shopping/tanning/getting my hair or nails done/texting about how drunk and slutty I got the night before at the bar thing you think a tanning salon owner should be doing. Thanks. You are a delight to serve, with your ugly designer bag with some stupid letters on it that cost more than my car, your bitchy, hair flipping attitude, your demandingness, your condescension, your eye-rolling, all of it. Just thanks. Stop for a minute and realize that just because I work here it is not my life. It is a job, and a rather thankless one at times. And people like you are the cause of that. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else where they do fit the bill and will give you the same attitude back. Cuz my friends and me are already laughing at you anyway, and it really doesn’t make a difference to me. Leatherface. Muah.

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