Where Do I Get Intimidated?

It’s in the oddest places…Palmers Deli is one of them…I’ve mentioned that before. It’s just the whole ordering thing…it’s great food, but I get confused. I’m one of those people that want to see you make the salad or sandwich, so I stand up at the counter waiting, and I can feel the people behind me getting impatient. Then I move onto the pasta salads…and now I’m holding on to a salad or sandwich….a styrofoam cup…and I still haven’t picked out a dessert, and I don’t know my drink options.

It’s great for lunch, but I get anxiety going there.
Where else?
The tanning salon.

Yep…the tanning salon. My wife & I are going to Cozumel in about a month, and in effort to burn on the first day, we decided to do a little bit of tanning.

Monday was the first time I went tanning in about 3-4 years, maybe even longer than that, and I’m still intimidated by the tanning salon.

Mainly, it’s because I feel like I’m the only one there that has no idea what I’m doing. My wife physically signed me up on Monday while I was there…like I was incapable of answering my own personal information. All I know is that I had tanning eyebuds that I found at the bottom of my change drawer in my car. Who knows how long they’ve been there, but I blew on them, so they’re clean now, right?

Everyone there is so tan…they know their way around the store. I have no idea what I’m doing.

My wife went go to tan…I’m in the lobby, and here’s how it went down:

Wife leaves.

Tan woman behind counter asks me “How many minutes?”

I say 7…because that’s what my wife was doing. I’ll follow.

“Room 8” she says.

I spin around in a circle.

“That way” she points.

I’m still confused, so I just pretend I know where I’m going…I finally find Room 8.

I walk in.

Towels…awesome.

I strip to boxers…double-check the lock on the door works.

I sit on the tanning bed…immediately stand up…I always think it’s going to break the first time.

I remove the “This has been sanitized” sign.

I play with the radio…which is just me pressing buttons. I finally settle on preset 4…which isn’t Star 102.5, but I can’t find the manual tuning button. Oh, they have an AUX input…I can plug my Ipod in. Perfect. Will that melt?

I lower the cover…immediately feel like I’m trapped. I raise it back up…I’m going out the way the two topless gals did in Final Destination 3.

I lower the cover again. I hear a door open. I open it again…room next to me…not mine. I might have muttered a higher-than-normal “Hello?”

Embarrassed…I lower the cover again…and light it up.

Halfway through, I realize my head is on the the little pillow they have in there. That’s not good for bald people… 1/4 of the back of our head will not get tanned…will look ridiculous.

I remove pillow. Now, I’m just hoping I’m facing the same way everybody else has…my head is probably laying in someone’s feet sweat right now.

7 minutes is up….lights go out.

I put my clothes on. I wipe down the bed.

I throw my towel into a wastebasket-looking bin. For 30 seconds, I debate whether this is a garbage or the towel bin.

I walk out of room…my wife is in the lobby. Smiling.

“How’d you do?” she asks.

“Fine, felt good” I respond.

She smiles…and it won’t be until this very moment when she reads this that she’ll see what an idiot she married, ha ha.

AWESOME is as AWESOME does!