She wore an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini

If I haven't mentioned it before, I have been working on converting movies my mom recorded with her camcorder from VHS to DVD format. In one such movie, we are visiting my aunt on a hot summer day, and the sprinkler is on in the front yard. All of us kids are in our swim suits, running and playing. Except for me. By this time, I was to cool to run around in a sprinkler, so I am laying on town "sun bathing". Thus begins my quest to be tan.
When I was in high school, we had a pool in our backyard. The summer before I turned 16, I didn't have a job, so I spent the summer laying out by the pool and rotating myself at precise times so I would tan evenly. It was a fantastic summer. And I did get tan, probably one of the only times in my life I was tan.
I have always enjoyed going to the beach. Most of my life I have had a black bathing suit. I was of the philosophy that a black bathing suit was like a little black dress, it made you look nice and thin, and because it was black, you looked tanner in it. For a couple of years I wore a speedo, but then I realized that was not a "lounge around looking great" suit, it was a "ride the waves, do laps" suit.
Several summers ago my family was going to the beach, and I needed a new swimming suit. Swim suit shopping is the most traumatic type of shopping imaginable. I tried to avoid it by ordering Lands End modest tankini's online, only to find out they didn't fit. So I decided to go to the mall and try to find a bathing suit. You all know the drill..... flourescent lighting, your pasty white winter skin, and the spandex-y material that is hard to pull on. In the store all I could find was a lime green suit. The sales lady convinced me it made me look fantastic. So I bought it. Later that week, I convinced my sister to go swim suit shopping at the same store. Of course she finds a fantastic maroon swim suit that was not lime green. Yes, I was totally jealous.
This summer I am going to Duck beach with friends for Memorial Day weekend. I have been reluctant to try on the suit I bought after the lime green one because it has been a couple of years, and bathing suits don't tend to hold up well over the years. I finally tried it on, and it was not pretty. So I called my sister because a year or two ago the maroon one didn't fit her, so I had given her the lime green one. She mailed me the maroon one, which fit great. So we are getting good use out of the expensive swim suits :)
My goal this weekend is to not get sunburnt.... wish me luck!