Tan Me Hide Me
By Danny McBride
IPS Features
 

In any intense news cycle it’s always good to have a story like this one from Fort Worth.  After ten days of eating Hainan Chicken our servicemen and women are back home eating pizza, the Palestinians and Israelis are doing what they do best- -not playing well with others, especially each other, and now even Lou Dobbs has come back from space (that’s Space-Dot-Com) to retake the anchor chair at CNN and explain what’s going on with the economy and the markets.  All is again as normal as it gets.  For the moment.

So we can take time for this news item from the Associated Press as reported in the Boston Globe and many other big city newspapers: 

“Dateline – Fort Worth, Texas - -An alleged bank robber was captured by police when he ran into a tanning salon and asked for a tan, authorities said Wednesday.  Police officers found the 17-year-old suspect in his underwear for the tanning session, Fort Worth Police Department spokesman Duane Paul said.  He was accused of using a toy gun to rob a bank Tuesday, then running into the Total Tan salon to elude police.  The owner became suspicious because the suspect was out of breath and asked “Are you being chased?” Paul said.  “No, I just want a tan,” the suspect replied.  She gave him a tanning bed then called police, who raced to the scene and nabbed him, Paul said.  He was being held in Tarrant County Jail on $50, 000 bail.”

What goes through some people’s heads? 

Yes- -I’ve just robbed a bank- -quick a disguise!  I know- -a tan!!

Or picture this:  “Ma’m can you describe the alleged perp?”   “Why yes I can, officer - - he was a nice young man, but rather pasty- -looked as though he could use a tan.”

Back at the bank, tellers and customers alike were all in agreement:  “Alls we know is he was either five or six feet tall and had sort of either blue or brown eyes and wore boots or sneakers and had on either a red or yellow shirt with jeans or Bermuda shorts- -positively - - and HE NEEDED A TAN.”

How many 17-year-old young men go to tanning salons?  I have no way of knowing, but my guess is not that many. I know for a fact that plenty of young women go.  I have a young adult daughter who lives in gray and rainy Seattle and she always has a tan.  Some things about a California upbringing are firmly ingrained and “must be tan” is one of them.  They’re too young to know about skin cancer as any kind of reality.

So I’m thinking that this salon operator doesn’t see that many young men in the first place, and secondly, that many people in a hurry for a tan.  “Quick- -I’m ready to burn. Slather me in Hawaiian Tropic and baby oil.  I’ve got to compete at Lobsterfest.”

So the police arrest this poor loser in his underwear.  You’ve got to feel sorry for his friends and family.  Bonnie and Clyde, Willie Sutton, John Dillinger, and “Underwear Boy”.  Yeah, that strikes fear into the hearts of millions.  John Walsh wouldn’t have him on in a Fort Worth minute, however long that is.

I once knew a guy who went to jail for stealing things- -big time- -did more than a dozen years and was profiled on ABC’s Prime Time Live.  He had lived a double life at the time I worked with him twenty-five years ago, and the man I knew was nothing like the guy I saw in the jailhouse interview with Forrest Sawyer, except that he looked the same, given the passage of time.

I can see this same dumb guy in his TV interview.  “Yeah, I had it all figured.  Grab the money and then hide out in my underwear.  See- -no pockets- -How could it have been me?”

I’m picturing the shakedown at the police station in one of those interrogation rooms with the lone lightbulb suspended by an electrical cord over the suspect’s head.  Cops with styrofoam cups of bad vending machine coffee grilling him and this guy saying “Hey, could I get a piece of aluminum foil?  I’m missing a few spots under my chin.”

I have no idea how this case will turn out, or even if this kid is guilty of anything other than bad tanning salon choices.  It doesn’t seem as though he’s cut out for a life of crime- - toy gun, underwear garb, tanning disguise.  It’s not exactly the Brinks robbery.

This kid isn’t even going to make the list of America’s Tan Most Wanted.

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