I'd like to order the tanning bed rookie, extra crispy, please

I have always considered myself many things—an investigative journalist, a semi-decent cook, and a dog mom extraordinaire—but coordinated? Absolutely not. So, naturally, when I decided to try a tanning bed for the first time, I knew it was going to be an experience.

For background, I have had my fair share of sunburns over the years, from spending summers on the lake with little to no sunscreen to testing out self-tanners that left me more orange and greasy than bronzed and glowing. So when Barb, the owner of BFit gym in Davenport, graciously offered free tanning from February 17 to the end of...