The recent arrest of a New Jersey mom has the public abuzz—but not necessarily because of the charges. Patricia Krentcil was charged with second degree child endangerment after allowing her six-year-old daughter to tan with her. In the state of New Jersey it is illegal to use artificial tanning beds if you are under the age of 14, and between the ages of 14 and 18 the child is required to have adult supervision.
Although Krentcil swears she would never allow something as preposterous as letting her six-year-old get an artificial tan, authorities aren’t buying it. Obviously, they have good reason not to—despite the fact that the young daughter who was allegedly placed in the tanning bed has white porcelain skin, the mother’s skin appears to be a few shades darker than that of an Oompa Loompa. Oddly enough, Krentcil even goes on to compare herself to a Barbie, which seems a bit odd since even the rare version of a black Barbie never had a dark orange hue to her skin complexion. Clearly, the woman had something bordering on obsession to be as dark as possible, to make up for what Mother Nature failed to give her.
Even CNN’s Anderson Cooper could barely focus on the story at hand when he saw the image of the burned orange woman displayed across the screen. “I can’t even pay attention to what she’s saying… it’s like the tanning Olympics. She took the bronze. There’s no doubt about it,” Cooper said with a rather bewildered look on his face. The New Jersey mom is pleading not guilty in court, but for now the strongest evidence against her is her own dark leathery skin caused from an overexposure to tanning. Krentcil swears that her daughter received the sun burn from playing outside, but after a trip to the school nurse the young girl confessed that she had gone “tanning with mommy.” It appears as if this should be an easy case for the prosecution since the proof is literally written all over her face.
