Hands Like a Liger

The word of the day is pallid, an adjective meaning having an abnormally pale or wan complexion, or possibly lacking in vitality or interest.

And yet again it is as though the world (or at least dictionary.com) is mocking me.

Today is the day of my sister's rehearsal dinner and her wedding is tomorrow.  In anticipation of having a weekend full of pictures that would be around for the rest of my life, I went and got a spray tan.  I promised myself when I turned 30 that I wouldn't ever enter another tanning bed again, so this was the only choice.

I really thought this through, I went last week to get a run through to make sure nothing terrible happens.  This ain't my first rodeo!  Everything went great.  I got detailed instructions on how to keep the freaky orange stuff off of my hands and feet, and to make sure I get the most benefit with the minimum weird stuff.

But when I went for my game-time spraying, I was in a hurry and I may not have properly covered my hands.  Now they look like they belong to a liger ("It's like a lion and tiger mixed, bred for its skills in magic."*).  I have a decidedly pallid stripe across my right hand from the outside swooping up to the middle and ring fingers.  Then I have some funky palm-crease coloring that is reminiscent of a cheap makeup job for aging someone, probably for a cruddy talk show episode on age discrimination (think The Tyra Banks show.)

It's not so attractive.  So again, dictionary.com, how dare you conspire with fate and the world and irony and Shakespeare and Noah Webster to poke fun at my manual discoloration.

Forever chronicled as pallid
With no solution suggested by the event planner.
It turns out my concern was valid
But because I look like a professional leather tanner.

* Hopefully you have seen Napoleon Dynamite before.  Gosh!