So I went and had a spray tan…

I’m going on holiday to Rawa Island tonight with the boyfriend. This girl lives there. Apparently it is paradise. I believe her.

Sun, lots of sun. I love the sun.

Without a doubt the people there will tanned. I am very pasty. I decided this wouldn’t do. I am vain and I like to be adored. There is not a chance I’m hanging out on a beach filled with supermodel lookalikes in the popular red and white stripped look us Brits Abroad champion.

So I went and had a spray tan. It was weird.

Firstly, there’s the uncertainty when the young blonde girl in white asks you to take off your clothes before stepping onto the apparatus whether she means now or when she has left the room. Like with doctors. It has always puzzled me that it seems outrageously rude to watch someone undress (oh perverted hedonism, Sadé would applaud) but perfectly acceptable to prod them and, as it happens, spray them with a tanning hose (it would be funny if it wasn’t true) when they are in the buff.

So I tentatively tugged at my shirt until she walked out of the room promising to return when I was ready, I.E. naked but for a thong and standing on the apparatus.

It was about that time that I noticed the apparatus was opposite the door she had just walked through in order to return to the bustling salon. The bustling salon in which people sat being beautified in full view of the door and, I concluded, in full view of my pasty white flesh when blondie returned having, of course, to open the door wide enough to walk through it.

I tactically stood with my back to the door somehow, and childishly, concluding that if I couldn’t see their scorn it would make it slightly less true (I know; I’m self-centred). Standing there, I felt a little like a prisoner of war ready for my water-boarding and wondered if my position, in the circumstances and in such close proximity to the tanning hose, was a tad submissive.

The hose was hard and cold and I felt like I couldn’t breath, especially when she did my face. I giggled and wondered if I should enter the world of S&M.

Over the following eight hours I acquired an interesting colour, the nickname David (Dickenson) and a new dish cloth having stained my linen shirt. It was the only loose black clothing I had and those are the rules. Frankly I would have preferred to ruin my cheap white t-shirt, but ho-hum.

Finally I was allowed to shower to see the results. Brown. Even. Good, I thought. Though, a bit patchy around the frontal knickers area. Lace was possibly an unwise choice, I concluded. I look a bit like I’m still wearing them, except for instead of black they are now fleshy coloured with a hint of tangerine. Nice. Am thinking either lights off or knickers of the peep-hole variety until that fads. Nothing puts me off my stride like not at all contained hysterical laughter and finger pointing at my almost rude bits.

All packed and ready to go. See you in two weeks!