My Wal-Mart tan

Farmers have a farmer's tan and golfer's have one for golf, so I guess I can call my tan "a Wal-mart tan."

I tan easily, which has always seemed strange to me given my red-headed father and my platinum blonde mother. My sister has peaches and cream skin and, as a child, burned to a watermelon pink at the slightest bit of time in the sun. I turned brown.

I long ago gave up bathing in the sun. I indulged through high school and college and a bit post-college, but meeting up with a girl two years older than I was and realizing that all her time in the sun playing tennis had aged her skin to be, well, at least 30!, I quit. But the sun's rays and the Texas summers being what they are, I don't have to sit in the sun to look like I have.

I have a tan line at my shoulders that echoes my sleeveless summer apparel. I have it now. I had it in October (and it was a good deal darker.) I had it in January. No sooner does it fade to almost-me color, than I walk from my favorite parking spot in the Wal-Mart lot (next to the buggy collection site) to the store, oh, 4 times a week or so, and I pick up enough sun to get back my tan. It's not just my arms but my sandal-clad feet also. One might say my feet are striped to match my shoes.

Which isn't to say that my legs got into the same gene pool. They don't burn, but neither do they tan. I'm not quite sure what to make of this except to say that the cosmetics companies have come to my rescue. My favorite of those I've tried is Vaseline Intensive Care's Healthy Body Glow.

Now if I could just convince my spouse to use it on his feet so his golfer's sock tan would line up with his sandals.