The Color of Friendship

You may wonder what color friendship is. I don't know what color it is for you, but for me this year, it was Oompa Loompa Orange. (Don't check your box of 96 crayons for that; I'm pretty sure it's not there.) Oompa Loompa Orange, you ask...What is that? Well, let me explain.

The last day of school I told a fellow teacher (who never gets time for herself) that I would celebrate and we would go do whatever she wanted. It being summer, and us being the only two pasty white people left at our school (although frankly, none of them get any more sun than I do if you know what I mean), she decided we should go tanning. Not bake-yourself-in-a-little-box-and-get-sun-cancer-tanning but the special "spray on tan." As soon as I walked in, I knew I was in the wrong place and nearly turned and bolted. Some people obviously take tanning a lot more seriously than I do.

Now, I don't want to be like Dave Barry with his colonoscopy article and go into all the details. Suffice it to say when I actually got into the spray-on tan room, I felt like I was in some gas chamber with freezing cold vanity spraying all over me. I think I was so stunned, I ignored all instructions on exactly how to get an EVEN application. This wasn't too much of a problem the first day, but the second day I woke up orange. Full-on Oompa Loompa orange, with streaks in strange places and a few random patches of now even more apparent white. I tried everything. I scrubbed with salt (bad idea). I scrubbed with sugar (better idea, but it didn't work). I painted my fingernails hot pink to make it less obvious that I was an unnatural color.

Now, two weeks later, nothing remains but a little belly button that is Oompa-Loompa Friendship Orange.