You're not supposed to be "Black".

Sorry I haven't been around, but really the day, to day stuff is boring, and for the most part it's the same thing day in, and day out. Ahhh the exciting life of a business owner.

With the holidays coming, and going now it's been kinda busy, so even if I wanted to write something I wouldn't have had time anyway. But we get a lot of requests for spray tans this time of year because, for whatever reason, the holidays really snuck up on everybody this year. Hell New Year's Eve is in two days. I'm still surprised by that.

Well, anyway, I would have thought by now that after being here for five years people would start to get the hang of all this tanning stuff, but guess what?

A lady comes in the other day, and says she wants to get a spray tan. Cool.

"How dark do you wanna be?"

"Dark."

"Well I just got sprayed the other day, do you want to be like me? Or darker?"

"You just got sprayed?! How come you're not black?!"

(Hate, and murder are welling up inside me.)

"Well... I don't get sprayed very dark. I don't want to look like I just got sprayed."

"Oh. Well I want to be darker than that."

"Fine. No problem. It's your money, it's your body. I'll make you blue if you want."

A spray tan, or any tan for that matter isn't supposed to be a life changing event. The best example of how it's supposed to work is something that happened the other day. As the spray tan wears off, my natural skin color (notebook paper) comes through. Well, after a few days of looking like a ghost I got just my face sprayed darker. Just a little bit. That afternoon someone came in and asked me what I had done. Actually she asked me if I'd gotten a facial (!) as if I'm that kinda guy? I guess?

And that's how it's supposed to work. It's exactly like make up. No should notice you're wearing it. Please believe me, if you are a Norwegian blonde one day, and turn up the next looking like a migrant farm worker, people are gonna notice. And not in a good way.

How Do You Get Through The Day?

Seriously? How do you turn the fan on high?! What the f-ck is wrong with you? You've been coming here for three years and you still don't know how the fans work!? IT'S A FAN. Do you dress yourself in the morning? Do you drive to work? Does your care-taker let you use pointy scissors?

I talked about the radios before, and I kinda get that. In a world with MP3 players, and iPods, etc., I do understand that there might be some people alive today that, as weird as it sounds, may have never seen a portable radio. But we're talking about A FAN here. It's got three buttons. Wouldn't you just push them a couple of times to see what they do? It won't explode. IT'S A FAN. Retards like you are exactly the reason I have set a date of July 1, 2011 to be my last day as a tanning salon owner.

Seriously. Fucking idiot.

I'm Goin'!

Reverend Horton Heat - November 6th

Mad Sin - November 3rd

Social Distortion - October 20th

While We're on the Subject

As soon as this show began, I noticed an uptick in our male customers. The show must have made tanning less "gay" to them or something. But if you want some idea of the kinda people that watch this piece of shit show just spend the day in here.

They're meat-heads, bordering on retarded. On a personal level they seem nice enough, But I sometimes catch myself talking to them the way you would talk to a three legged dog. You know what I mean?

"Oh look at the poor doggie!" "Poor baby I hope you're okay now!" You know what I mean?

Ugh. I hope this little pop culture phenomena ends just as quickly as it started.

Who Do You Think You Are?!

You know, you seemed like a nice kid. You seemed sweet enough, and always friendly. But what the fuck? You come in here SCREAMING at my girls because you don't wanna pay the tax?! On the one day I'm not here too. Imagine that. What is your problem? Are you mentally defective or something? This shouldn't have been news to you as being 15 years old, I'm sure "Jersey Shore" is the height of culture to you. And your hero Snookie is all up in arms over this.

I have to assume the way you were behaving means one of three things.

1. You are young, and think that's the way to get businesses to listen to you (it is not).

2. You are young, and you were trying to impress that piece of shit wigger boyfriend of yours. I am sure he thought you were cool.

3. You are mentally unbalanced, and might fly off the handle and assault me, a customer, or one of the employees for even the most minor misunderstanding.

I'm just gonna be safe and go with number 3 to keep me from getting involved in your eventual mental breakdown.

When you demanded a full refund at the top of your lungs and pronounced that "I'm going to Big Chain Salon", I figured there's really no better place for you because no one comes in here and behaves like that. I didn't invest almost $200,000 dollars, and the last five years of my life to be screamed at by some half witted 15 year old.

Have a nice life.

And when you go to "Big Chain Salon"? Tell them I said hi.

Yeah. It Wasn't My Idea...

...and I don't like it either. I've never had a new federal law affect me personally, or so directly until now. But the guy you should send your complaints to is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, not here. This was his bright idea.

It is what it is. And really it's only 10%. As much as it bugs me, it added a whole, whopping dollar to our single session tans. I did my best to keep it inexpensive, and even tried to eat the tax myself so you wouldn't have to pay it. But let's try this mathematically shall we?

To you it's an extra $1. But for me you have to multiply that by 50-80 times on an average day. And that's not including any spray tans, or unlimited months that we sell which could be anywhere from an additional $2, to and extra $6 each. So that can be $60-$150 a day. Every day. I don't know how much money you cheapskates think we bring in here, but that's too much for me to pay.

And you know what really bugs me the most about all of this? I spent at least two months warning everyone that this was gonna happen. I used our website, or Facebook page - Hell, I even had a sign posted in the salon. No one bothered to notice. Frankly a purple alligator could be sleeping in most people's beds and they wouldn't notice, so I guess I don't blame you really.

No, the thing that irritates me the most is that no matter how many times I said this, or how many signs I put up, you decided I was lying, or joking, or just wanted to raise the price, and you didn't listen. But that fat, troll like retard "Snooki" mentions it one time, and it's like Moses preaching you the Gospel. I'm afraid the tax is probably here to stay. And someone has to pay it. Wanna guess who that's gonna be? That's right. You.

How About a Quart of Water With Your 70 Amps?

Today everybody walks around carrying giant bottles of water, HUGE cans of Monster energy drink, Red Bull, and on, and on...

We must be the most hydrated society in the history of the planet. The one thing that absolutely must stop is bringing that stuff in the tanning rooms with you. I had to put my foot down and started telling people they have to leave it outside, or in the lobby.

First of all, there are health department regulations in Illinois that says no food, or drink is allowed in the salon. Secondly as I've said in the past, tanning beds are really f-cking expensive, and I don't want to be vacuuming Dorito crumbs (seriously) out of my tanning beds. You can't stop shoving crap into your face for 15 minutes?

And third, our biggest tanning beds require 70 amps(!) of electricity at "start up". For the first few milliseconds after you hit the start button it's substantially more. Like upwards of 90 amps. In case you weren't aware, that is what is known in the electrical trade as a sh-t ton. For an example, my mothers entire house is run on 100 amps. So 65- 100mA WILL KILL YOU. That little "m" ,by the way, stands for thousandths. In other words, roughly 1/2 an amp will stop your f-cking heart.

I have a great idea. Why not stand in your shower with a running hairdryer balanced on the edge of the bathtub? Oh and again tanning beds are really expensive, and they are electrical. If you dump your stupid bottle of water into one of my tanning beds, you better hope you get electrocuted. Because if you don't get shocked to death, I'm gonna cut your head off.