Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Adieu to Brown

There are apparently only two color choices for my legs.

Option 1: Pasty white

Option 2: Bright fire engine red.

There is no in between for these gams. Oh, there are hints of purple from bruises and varicose veins that add a fun and different hue to small parts of my legs. An occasional spot of redness makes an appearance if I made the mistake of shaving with soap. But brown is not a color that my legs will accept anymore. The melanin must have escaped from my skin somewhere in the years and bid its last adieu when it falsely assumed I would always keep my beautiful legs hidden.

My arms happily brown under the excessive heat warnings of killer lovely Arizona days, but my legs still refuse. Day after day I encourage them to rediscover the joy of tanning, exposing them to major doses of sunlight at the afternoon swimming lessons, but they stubbornly remain colorless. I have, on occasion, pushed it too far - in their rage, they turn red and then quickly return within a day or two to their preferred state of white.

Alas...I must finally admit...my legs are simply...white.

And so, with a heavy heart my legs and I breathe out our final farewell to the color brown.

11 comments:

Dianna said...

I'm glad I'm not the only one. After having bright legs all through the summer of ninth grade, I finally gave up and decided I just wasn't meant to be tan.

Ice Cream said...

Oh, me too. Especially the back of my legs. Never ever tan. *sigh*

Anonymous said...

I could have written this.

Jeanette said...

I feel your pain!
I used to tan so beautifully. I look at pictures when I was younger and wow! I was dark. It probably helped that I lived at the pool all summer.
Now, I am either bright white or bright red.
Oh well. If I had more money and time maybe I do the spray tan thing but right now I am just staying colorless.

An Ordinary Mom said...

I am not sure what my legs would do since we have no sun here :) !!

Chelan said...

You're so funny :-) I share the same curse as well.

Amanda said...

When I was on my mission, walking out in the sun ALL day long, with no sunscreen, I discovered that I have 2 colors: pasty (practically see-through) white and pink (like a bright coral pink). Where the sun shined through the holes of my Doc Martens, I had a very slight tan--but everywhere else the sun hit was coral all summer long. :)

raybee... said...

I spent a couple of hours in the sun in Las Vegas a few years back. In my younger years, that time would have turned my skin a nice brown and that brown would have lasted all summer. Instead, I came home looking like a tomato and peeled two days later back to white. Luckily, my legs are chunky too - matches the white better that way.

Unknown said...

My legs turn a nice dark ivory. If ivory could ever be dark. My face, however, has a few shades: white, red and freckles!

stephanie said...

Hey, white is beautiful! At least 100 years ago it was. I often lament I did not live back then when "pleasantly plump" was en vogue too. I could have been the equivalent of Cindy Crawford, or whoever the new hot supermodel is. I would have missed the internet and Ipod, though.

Beeswax said...

Arizona is not a place to get a tan. It is like being under the broiler, when you should have been on WARM. You slather on sumscreen and wear hats and hope you don't turn into a shrivelly old prune before your time. Celelbrate your whiteness! It looks like healthy skin!

(For beach vacations I use estee lauder fake tan on my legs.)