Tanning salon owners in Austin are complaining about the new 10% tax on tanning sessions. They can complain all they want about this sin tax targeting them unfairly, but until said tax rises to the level of the sin tax on cigarettes, they can pretty much shut the hell up about it. Excessive use of tanning beds is a risky behavior, and in the long run do no one any good. I used to have friends who used them all the time. Some of them are now dealing with skin cancer problems, and all of them have skin that looks like poorly preserved leather. Sure, that tan may look great when one is twenty years old, but a years of intense UV radiation will make anyone using tanning beds look like they are fifty years old by the time they celebrate their thirtieth birthday.

Then there’s this:

On a recent weekday at Aruba Tan, Rylee Case, a 25-year-old UT sophomore from Lubbock, grimaced at the thought of paying more money for an evenly bronzed complexion. But she said remaining tanned for various events throughout the school year is important enough to her to pay the extra cost. “I’ll probably be doing the same thing,” she said. “It’s still something I’ll want to do.”

What sort of “event” requires one to have a skin tone other than their own natural one? And you know, there’s this thing up in the sky called the sun, and it’ll give you a tan for free. Of course, that would require actually being outside, and apparently people who use tanning salons can’t be bothered to be outside.

Seriously, stay away from the tanning beds. They are totally not worth it the temporary awesomeness of the all-over tan. You’ll eventually regret it, even if you do avoid having to deal with cancer … unless you want to look way too old for your age or like looking like a farmhand.

Don’t kids today know that it was always the fair-skinned maidens who were considered upper class, because they DIDN’T have a tan, proving they didn’t have to work out in the fields all day? My how things change.