Tanning Bed Accident Grants Suburban Mom Powers Of The Sun
By: Ross Childs
LAKE FOREST, IL—The fine line between tragedy and miracle was made all the finer today as an accident involving a tanning bed endowed a local suburbanite mother with the powers of the sun. Kathleen Maddox, a former pharmaceutical sales representative and mother of three, had gone to “Glow-bal Warming Tanning Salon” for her weekly tanning session. However, things went wrong Tuesday after Maddox accidentally spilled her chocolate-peach mojito on the tanning bed as she was laying down. Sparks began flying and the bed went haywire.
The entire salon stood in silent shock when the charred body of Kathleen Maddox arose from the scorched self-tanning apparatus. Maddox’s eyelids and lips had burned away, revealing eyes and teeth in a constant display of gore. Her Victoria’s Secret athleisure wear had fused to her torso and legs. The parts of her body that were exposed were barbecued to fall-off-the-bone perfection. Her constant shrieks of pain cut through the strip mall like glass through butter.
“It was like something out of Dawn of the Dead,” exclaimed Rodney Barker, a full-of-shit poser who absolutely has not seen Dawn of the Dead.
Expressions of horror quickly turned…Actually, you know what? I can’t let that Dawn of the Dead thing go. The situation with Maddox was NOTHING like that movie – zombies in “Dawn” don’t scream bloody murder because they don’t feel pain because they’re already dead, not dying, hence the name Dawn of the DEAD Zombies don’t express any emotions at all – they just feed. Rodney Barker would’ve known that if he’d actually WATCHED THE MOVIE! Rodney, if you’re reading this, I hope you stub your toe on a filing cabinet, you dirty liar! Eat shit!
Where was I? Oh yeah.
Expressions of horror quickly turned to awe as Maddox’s body began to glow like a thousand searchlights all being flipped on at once. 9-year-old Arlington Heights resident Flanagan Blanagan reportedly saw the disturbance from nearly 20 miles away. “I was eating chipotle-honey chicken crispers at Chilis when KA-BOOM there was this huge skybeam super far away!!”
Maddox’s body was instantly healed as rays of majestic light permeated from her body in a dazzling display of ultraviolet majesty. The impressiveness of the phenomenon was undercut by the fact that some of the other customers, employees, and associates at the tanning salon were almost immediately and permanently blinded. The only credible eyewitness account came from Darlene Krendall, who never takes off her large cat-eye sunglasses, even during her three wedding ceremonies. “I saw her glowing like crazy and it hurt my skin,” said Krendall, “but my sciatica was completely cured by the beam, so no complaints.”
Maddox, the newly-minted Sun deity, proceeded to float out of the salon and into the strip mall parking lot, where a crowd of astonished onlookers had gathered. Almost immediately, the lot was filled to the brim with soccer moms, real estate agents, beach volleyball players, and shirtless lifters who cannot shut up about being able to bench 225 lbs – all wishing to bask in the tanning power of Maddox, whom they referred to as “The Glowing One”. They began anointing themselves from a trough of tanning oil as a form of holy rite. Fellow tanning enthusiast and Soul Cycle instructor, Lindsay Flinzy, said, “Rejoice must we all, for the prophecy has been fulfilled. Though the Earth revolveth around the Sun, one day it shall come to pass that one among us shall BE the Sun on Earth, and the great Tannening shall begin! All hail The Glowing One! All Hail the Glowing One!”
The gatherers, who refer to themselves as “The Bronze Brigade” began lining up all of the palest customers in the area. “They shall be judged,” explained Geoffrey Reynolds, a sales associate at Crate & Barrel. “Those that reflect the bright shall be brought before The Glowing One to receive her light. If they be worthy, their skin shall shine with a glorious amber hue! If they be unworthy, they shall be reduced to ashes, which will then be repurposed as an acne scrub for The Glowing One’s leathery acolytes! Praise be The Glowing One!” One by one, those with skin tones lighter than olive were brought before Maddox. Then, in a dazzling display of solar power, she would bathe them in a wave of concentrated UV radiation. None were deemed worthy, and the parking lot quickly resembled a Texas barbecue smoke pit after all the brisket had been removed.
Maddox’s intense beams of glorious photonic bliss fried any electronic devices close enough to record her voice, foiling all attempts at getting a statement until interviewers were able to obtain 50-pound lead-shielded microphone “My neighbor Sheila is going to SHIT when she sees this,” said Maddox.“ She thinks her new Range Rover is so cool, well look who’s turning heads at the PTA now, Sheila! Also, I don’t think I can die.”
