mmmm...roast

I have a friend that is planning a tropical vacation soon, and would like to sport a golden bronze hue along with her suit. We were giggling because, this being the pacific North West, we are more likely to mold than tan, so she bought an unlimited tanning package at a local salon. I casually asked her if she had heard about the girl that baked her guts before the prom the very same way. (who hasn't heard this--and where, may I ask, does this crap come from??) I couldn't remember if it was true or not, but it seems doubtful, even though I am pretty afraid of the sun and it's damaging UV rays, so we decided that I needed to "research" it on snopes. Now if you haven't heard about snopes, it probably means you haven't sent me any ridiculous emails that you got directly from Bill Gates or the Gap promising you money or who knows what other forms of untold wealth....if you did, (and some of you have) then I most likely sent you a link to the snopes site, along with direct instructions to never forward this type of garbage again--I have kind of strong feelings about it. This website is so cool, I have spent hours there looking through urban legends, email hoaxes, and just, well, gossip. It gets addicting: do those Disney movies really have naughty things written in the clouds and dust poofs and things? Are microwaves going to bake your brain? Do people really find hypodermic needles in the pumps at the gas stations? Is that cell phone tower going to make my babies rabid? You know--the stuff you wonder about anyway. I have saved myself from many a heart attack by heading straight to snopes to check stuff out, and let me also concede this--lots of things are true that I thought were just a load...Scary stuff some of it, but always the information is good to know, kids really die from drinking hand sanitizer, huffing canned air and drugs that look and taste the the candy "Nerds". Without further ado--the website is www.snopes.com you can bookmark it for yourself and do some "investigation" of your own.
Just in case you're paying attention, the tanning bed/roaster oven story is completely false, there have been a couple of tanning bed related deaths, but no one was baked, one got freakish burns (due to some medication she had been taking) and another got skin cancer from her frequent visits (imagine that!?!)--nothing as exciting as cooked organs or smoke shooting out of someones ear-holes, I have to admit I am a little disappointed, life is rarely as exciting as movies/books/urban legends would lead us to believe. My friend will be glad to hear I won't bug her about baking her guts, although I'm sure she will be expecting me to sniff the air and ask her if she's barbecuing when I see her next--she wouldn't really know me at all if she didn't.