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The Tan

I have this habit of rolling up my sleeves. I don't really remember why I started doing it, but I do know that it's become second nature for me. If I'm not wearing a short-sleeved shirt, I will almost automatically roll up the sleeves. I do this with all kinds of clothing: dress shirts at work, sweaters, sweatshirts, athletic gear, you get the idea. I pretty much never keep my sleeves rolled down unless I have to (say if I'm wearing a suit at a wedding).

I also like to be active, so I will occasionally go on hikes or go on runs. One day several weeks back, I decided to go for a hike before hanging out with a buddy of mine. I specifically remember thinking that I should bring a hat to limit the amount of heat I lost and to protect myself from the sun, so the sun's effects must have been on my mind. I also intentionally wore long sleeves so that I wouldn't have to worry as much about wearing sunscreen or getting sun burn.

Here's the thing, though, despite my penchant for rolling up my sleeves, I don't think I got much of a sunburn from the hike. I did, in fact, roll up my sleeves while walking around, but good chunks of the hike were in shaded parts of a trail. I also kept rolling my sleeves up and down as I was walking around, since I also had to walk through brush and other assorted foliage. So, all in all, my anti-sunburn-on-the-hike plan was a success.

This wouldn't be much of a blog post if that's where the story ended, though. I had lunch after the hike, and then stopped off at my friend's house to hang out. Since it was a nice day out, we decided to hang out on the patio and consume some adult beverages. I hadn't seen him or his wife in a while, so a few hours passed as we chatted and caught up. And of course, my natural tendency to roll up my sleeves kicked in at that point. The problem was that even though I'd had a anti-sunburn plan for the hike, I didn't have an anti-sunburn plan for sitting out on the patio. In fact, it never really crossed my mind because I was just thinking about hanging out.

Do you know what happens when you roll up your sleeves and then sit out in the sun for a while? You get a very, very definitive tan. It ends up looking like a farmer's tan that got shifted down by about 6 inches. However, this is not something that people are used to seeing, so they will usually comment on it when they notice it. With farmer's tans, people more or less understand what they see, so they won't usually say too much about it. But with a tan that is pretty much a straight line across your forearms, they will comment.

The best part of all of this is that I've had this tan for a couple of weeks now, and it looks like it'll be at least another week before my tan fades and the skin starts looking normal again. Be ware of patios, people.

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