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6B - The Michigan Daily - Weekend, etc. Magazine - Thursday, January 31, 2002
AS WE ALL KNEW SHE WOULD, D-TOWN COMES CRAWLING BACK
The Michigan Daily - Weekend, etc. Magazine -
Tanning salons offer students good deals bel
By Rebecca Ramsey
Daily Arts Writer
f you remember from two weeks
ago, and assuming that you care,
my girlfriend "D-Town Dana"
left me earlier this month, citing.
irreconcilable differences based on
the fact that I have neither ambition
nor future prospects, and because a
senior audit informed me that I
wouldn't be graduating until, even
by the most generous of estimates,
winter 2004.
Yes, it hurt; I'm not made of stone.
I pleaded with her to consider keep-
ing me, sending her a bunch of
pathetic e-mails that were all a vari-
ation of "I can think of worse fates
than having a college boyfriend for
another three years. Most high
school girls would kill for that." D-
Town remained unmoved, citing her
status as a "gold-digger," and invari-
ably, in her infrequent reply e-mails,
repeating her mantra: "If you want to
make it better, you gots to bring the
cheddar." "Cheddar," of course,
being urban youth slang for money.
As I soon found out, the five-year
earning potential for 21-year-old
men who are slated to spend the next
three years (at least) in school, still
dependent on
their parents
and who have
no idea what
they're going to
do if and when
they do gradu-
ate, is wither-
ingly low.
But instead
xA of crying about
it, I decided to
get proactive,
Goldstein and that's when
things started
Sick! coming up
Goldstein.
Figuring that there must have been
some kind of mistake if after eight
semesters (including one spring
term) of classes, I had only accumu-
lated 66 credits, even with all the AP
credits I had brought to the
University (this was what the senior
audit was, in effect, telling me), I
strolled (being as it was a lovely day)
down to the LSA building to see
what the fuck was up. A cursory
check of information revealed that
the information I had been sent was
not mine, but that of another Ben
Goldstein, a sophomore from
Providence, R.I. A philosophy
major. A snot-nosed feeb.
Well this was certainly news I
could use! There was still the matter
of my total lack of requirement-ful-
fillment in physics, the concentra-
tion I had randomly selected during
my sophomore year, but the kind,
pleasantly plump and gracefully
aging woman in the Registrar's
Office told me that if I passed all my
classes this semester and retroactive-
ly modified two film classes I took
with Prof. Peter Bauland ("Famous
People I've Known and Loved,"
"Interior Vision: The Subjective
Camera in Pre-War Stag Films")
from film to English credit, I could,
technically and hypothetically, be an
English major. What serendipity!
Me, a person to which English is
their third language, to be an English
major? The idea tickled me to death,
and I stood there in front of the old
fat lady, chortling madly, vindicated.
The first thing I did, of course,
was share the news with the ex-girl-
friend, D-Town Dana, that old ball-
and-chain. I e-mailed her with the
subject as "INSTANT $$$-MAK-
ING OPPORTUNITY!! !"; she had
recently stopped opening my e-mails
altogether, but I was pretty sure she
would be lured by the dollar signs.
Anyway, I just wrote to her that I
would indeed be graduating on time,
with a lucrative degree in English no
less, and if she wanted to meet to
discuss the implications of this, and
what benefits this might have for
her, I would be at the Outback
Steakhouse off of Ann Arbor-Saline
Rd., at 8 p.m. the following evening.
She showed up, as I knew she
would, on time and looking scorch-
ingly hot. Dana has this absolutely
dynamite body, and a kind of "full-
figured and flaunting it" attitude to
her style of dress that most white
women, frankly, can't pull off. She
sauntered over to my booth and sat
down. There was silence for a good
three seconds; it was tense. Finally,
D-Town spoke: "Baby, take me back.
I made such a big mistake. It's you I
love. I'm a fool. Do you think we
could ever work things out? Huh,
Beebee? Hmm? Do ya?" Our wait-
ress came over and Dana ordered the
Melbourne ("A 20-ounce porter-
house - it's bonzer!") and a side
order of Kookaburra Wings.
I was still stinging from the past
rejection so I kept a tight poker face,
not letting her know what I was real-
ly feeling. "What about Rolf?" I
asked. Rolf was this filthy Canadian
international student she had started
seeing immediately after my senior
audit went public (it's a small cam-
pus, these things spread quickly).
"Rolf is dead. I tore his head off
and ate it one night after we made
love."
I couldn't help but smile. "No,
Dana, seriously."
"Well, let's just say things didn't
work out. We were incompatible,
emotionally and spiritually. And sex-
ually, definitely sexually. There were
... things ... things that he wanted
me to do for him."
"You can spare me the details"
"He wore a diaper to bed, and
called me Mumma."
"Really, Dana, you don't have to
tell me."
"He wanted me to 'nurse' him,
and change him when he got 'poop-
ie-woopie'."
"OK, enough!" I felt rage and
hatred for the vile, twisted
Canadian, but underneath it all was
the feeling that maybe D-Town Dana
had gotten what she had deserved.
We stared at each other for a long
time. She said, "I hope this doesn't
destroy everything we've worked so
hard to build. Do you think you
could ever forgive me, little Wee-
wee? Do you think we could rekin-
dle our love and have a future
again?"
"Yes, Dana," I said. "Yes." And
with that, I got out of my seat, got
down on one knee in front of her. I
pulled a ring box from my pocket
and looked into her eyes. "Open it,"
I said.
Her gasp was audible. She raised
her hands to her face and her eyes
rolled around wildly in her head.
After a moment of stunned silence,
she moved her shaky hands over to
the ring box and opened it. And
that's when a dozen, multicolored,
spring-loaded novelty snakes
jumped out at her, shooting every
which way in an orgy of hilarity. She
was crushed, openly weeping, the
emotions of savage disappointment
and insult placing her far beyond the
realm of caring what the other
patrons of the Aussie-themed steak-
house thought of the display. And I,
still kneeling, couldn't stop myself
from laughing, laughing, laughing.
Revenge, unlike the steaming pile
of Kookaburra Wings that arrived at
our table just seconds later, is a dish
best served cold.
- Ben Goldstein can be reached at
bjgoldst@umich. edu.
As Spring Break quickly draws near, many
students are rushing to the gym and starting
diets in order to prevent feeling uncomfort-
able while wearing a swimsuit in the pres-
ence of others. Exercise and calorie counting
are good ways to prevent that bad feeling (the
feeling you have in dreams where you are
naked at school and desperately trying to
cover yourself), but it does not look so good
when your skin is as pale as Sean Patrick
Flannery in "Powder."
Endless Summer, Untamed Tan and
Southern Exposure may all sound like titles
for bad B-movies, but they are actually the
names of local tanning salons. While the
tragic closing of Southern Exposure, former-
ly located on South University Ave., may
have caused many students to endure the
agony of pitiful white, almost translucent
skin, there are many other places to obtain a
tan.
Tanfastic Tanning Spa, a salon with loca-
tions on Main Street and North Campus, cur-
rently offers students a tanning package of 12
visits for $55; Voted the "Best in Ann Arbor,"
Tanfastic boasts a waiting room with a tropi-
cal display of bold colors and stays open until
midnight Monday through Friday. Besides
these impressive attributes, the salon is also a
great place to meet girls.
Stephanie Thompson, an employee at
Tanfastic, described this added bonus, "Most
of our customers are girls, and business has
been very busy since the New Year."
Tanning seems to be a popular trend for
guys too. Merna Stevens, manager of the
Untamed Tan salon in Ypsilanti (for those
who desire to go beyond Ann Arbor or who
want to avoid the embarrassment of people
realizing that their tan is a fake), said "More
men are tanning now than they did last year."
Untamed Tan (assumed to have garnered its
name from the film "Untamed Heart," which
stars a very pale Christian Slater) offers a
great deal for students. For the price of
$14.99 per month, those with valid student
identification can tan as frequently as they
want.
Students with winter tans are often
assumed to have visited sunny places during
winter break, but some who stayed in cold
places du
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RYAN LEVENTHAL/Daily
LSA junior Steve Frigo catches some artificial rays at Tanfastic on South Main St.
Learn more at www.sph.umich.edu/hmp
The University of Michigan Master's Program in Health
Management and Policy has been ranked #1 nationally
by U.S. News & World Report since 1993. To learn more
and to apply, see our website
or phone 734.763.9900 today. :,x'v'a