I got a spray tan and I love it with all my heart, and my Barbie blonde hair no longer makes me look sickly, and even my feet are tan, and it’s so glorious.

The money was from when I won my NCAA bracket at work (Holla!).

I can’t get real tans because A. They give you skin cancer and then you die, and B. I only burn. Like red as Rudolph’s nose on a tomato, carried by Clifford on a fire truck-burn. So even if I tried to use the sun, it wouldn’t work.

For those who are either A. Black, B. Mexican or C. A boy, spray tans basically: cost a lot of money, ($30), last for 8 to 10 days (5), and have about a 10 percent chance of making you look either orange or 10 pounds skinner (Luckily, I do not look orange). (At least, I don’t think I do). (Wait, do I? Do I look orange? Frick. I probably look orange? This lighting sucks).

To get the tan, you stand naked (yes, naked) in a chamber that’s kind of like an upright CAT Scan Tube and a man from space comes on the speaker and counts down.

“FIVE. FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE”

And then you’re blasted with a cold, wet spray for about seven seconds. You then get five more seconds to turn around so the tube can do your back.

You have to make sure to hold your arms out like your carrying a gallon of paint in each hand otherwise you’ll have half-tan arms that look like you laid out in the sun with your palms glued to your hip bones.

Then, you get out of the chamber and try to dry yourself off without wiping anything at all, ever or the whole thing could make your an orange zebra.

Over the next three to five hours you gradually get darker and darker and darker and it’s kind of weird, because people want so bad to assume it’s a real tan, but they know in their hearts that nobody tans under florescent lights, so it must be some sort of paint and that’s just awkward.

Then they try to ask you about it, thinking maybe you just went to Florida between getting off work Wednesday and coming into work Thursday, all, ‘You look like you got some sun?’

You can say, “Yes.” And then walk away.

But, I’m too open to do that, so I’m always, “NO! I just got a spray tan! Isn’t it AWESOME? Look, look at my wrist! You can see the part where it got messed up.”

And then they give me sad look that says, “Oh, Crystal. It’s so sad that you can’t tan in the sun” and walk away.

But I know I look awesome (and humble), so I don’t even care.

I wish  could afford to get one every week though. For now, I just have to make this last as long as possible, which basically means no exfoliating at all, and no washing my face, and as few showers as possible. (Yes I went there. Yes it’s true).