kimberliah…

Do you enjoy the feeling of being drunk… but hate how it can take hours upon hours to reach that coveted peaked state of inebriation?

Well, I have discovered a little shortcut.

In my last post, I talked about The Walk of Shame.2 … which is basically the 99 mile journey from the depths of the tanning bed to your vehicle.

You’re disheveled… you smell kind of different and you’re praying that no one you know will see you.

One of the biggest offenders on my list o’ pet peeves is the wearing of sunglasses inside.

While preparing to exit the room where I recently fake and baked I have considered, numerous times, throwing on the shades… to attempt to make my way through the lobby discreetly.

I’ve never gone through with it, but I do ensure that the glasses are clenched firmly in my hand so they can be placed onto my face the second my foot touches the sidewalk.

The original Walk of  Shame is usually prompted by some kind of alcohol consumption.

Walk of Shame.2 occurs while the buzz is still going strong.

The tanning buzz, that is.

You begin to feel it immediately as you open the bed and slide yourself back into a seated position.

You sit there… on the edge of the tanning bed… room spinning

So much needs to be done and you don’t have much time

You take a few unsteady steps towards the chair that you draped your clothes over

and it never fails, at least one item of clothing has managed to slip to the floor

That item is usually your shirt

You bend over slowly to pick up the offending piece of apparel, one hand steadying yourself on the chair.

The slightest false move could send you somersaulting across the tiled floor

and that would probably be loud.

The last thing you want to do in the tanning bed room, is be loud.  Everything can be heard in the lobby.

Everything.

It takes you at least 15 seconds to successfully pluck your shirt off of the floor

As you reach to put it on, you notice that it is now inside out.

on extra hot days you will fail to realize that it’s inside out until you are already wearing the shirt

If you actually drank the previous night and entered the bed with a hangover, you won’t realize it’s inside out until you are removing the shirt, that night, to go to bed.

Once you have successfully returned all of your clothing to their rightful places on your body, you will notice 2 white socks on the floor… underneath the chair

You will ponder and possibly have an internal argument with yourself regarding whether the socks actually came into the room with you.

You will consider throwing the socks into the trash and covering them with sample lotion packets

You will consider stuffing them in your bra

You will barely stop yourself from making sock puppets out of them… most of the time

the only idea that will NOT enter your mind, is to place them back onto your hot sweating feet.

You would rather exit the tanning salon nude than to put those things back on your feet.

You decide at the last-minute to shove them to the bottom of the purse.

You make a mental note (which will be forgotten immediately when air that is cooler than 193 degrees touches your face)  to ALWAYS wear flip-flops, from here on out, to the tanning salon

After double and triple checking to make sure you collected all of your belongings and almost knocking over a decorative vase… you exit the room.

and everyone stares…

You don’t see it but you can feel it

You lunge one foot after the other towards the door, praying to stay upright

praying that no one calls you by name

praying that your eyeballs will stop sweating

You push the door to the salon open and are greeted by direct sunlight

you curse the fact that every car in the parking lot is the same color as yours

You approach a black lifted truck and realize, while on you tip-toes trying to put the key in the door, that it is not your little black Pontiac

You find your car on the second try

You do an internal victory dance

The homeless lady with the dog decided against asking you for change… because you’re too busy mumbling to yourself in another language

You open your car door, slowly turn around and fall into the driver’s seat.

You sit there for 10 minutes as the buzz fades away.

The next day, at Walmart, as you go to pay the cashier you are baffled by a pair of crumpled white socks at the bottom of your purse.

You then go home and lecture the kids for 45 minutes about staying the hell out of your purse.