I had a birthday about a month ago. Late on the afternoon of my birthday, my husband surprised me with a gift card to a spa I like in town. We then went out for a lovely dinner and came home to find my son sitting in the den, looking rather sullen and holding a gift card from the same spa.
The two of them had no idea that they had gotten me the same gift, but it is a testament to how well they know me and how much they realized I needed a spa day!
I decided to use the cards throughout the fall to try and stay calm and look acceptable for my son’s wedding at the end of the year. Today I headed to the spa to have a relaxing hour or so and start my face on its path to its new and improved glow.
At least that was my plan.
I haven’t been to this establishment in 3 or 4 years since we tend to enjoy a spa day on most any vacation we take. Too many spa days would make the experience less special so I just quit going when I’m in town and enjoy spas around the country instead.
Since I haven’t been traveling much, I just haven’t gone to the spa as much. Hence the mentions of needing a spa day and the duplicate birthday gifts. (I am not complaining!) (Not yet anyway!!)
The spa looked just as it had years ago and I was signed in and escorted back promptly. The kind lady who guided me to the spa area stopped abruptly and suggested I have a seat before entering the locker room. She told me that there was a group of nine who had just gotten in there and it might be wise to let them get settled before I was shown in.
Little did she know that “getting settled” was not in this group’s plan.
Eventually the lady took me to the locker room and gave me locker #1, as far away from the crowd as possible in this tiny space. The women were spread out all over so that there was no room to stand, no room on the benches and no place to hear yourself think as they talked incessantly and laughed loudly.
I tried to enter both of the changing rooms just off to the right, but both doors were locked and people from inside were shouting to the people outside so as to be a part of the conversation.
During all of this, the group ran the sweet attendant ragged. They had forgotten how to open their locker, they had forgotten their combination, they had told her the wrong size of slipper to get. The poor woman had to get others from the front desk to come help with all of the issues these women were shouting about.
My thought was- how do you get to be as old as these women appeared to be (my guess was that they were comparable to my advanced age) and forget what size shoe you wear or what number you put in as your combination? And how do you survive 5 or 6 decades and not learn how to be kind to people who are there to make your day pleasant and delightful?
Now I worry that I must seem like the old man who yells at the kids to get off of his lawn. I love laughter and can talk a blue streak when given half a chance. I am not mad if you want to talk and laugh. I am mad if you are rude and oblivious to others around you.
I decided the best thing I could do was to hurry and give this boisterous group all of the room they needed. So I quickly changed what clothes I could before being shoved so far in the corner that I could no longer move my arms.
I grabbed my robe from the floor, where I had had to lay it since the benches were strewn with other people’s things, locked the locker and headed to the steam room that I noticed seemed empty. I finished changing in the empty room full of steam, a space almost too hot to bear.
Now I love a good steam room and my plan had been to go there first anyway. Opening up the pores and sweating out the toxins is one of my favorite things. I had not planned to use it as a dressing room. Once I was situated, I breathed in the warm, damp air and tried to relax. In my hurry to vacate the dressing area, I had not brought my watch so I had no idea how long I should stay in there.
Once my skin was glowing red and I was drenched in sweat, I decided it was probably close to time for my facial. I peaked into the locker room and found it basically empty, except for one woman who was on the far side of the area looking at her phone. I quickly stashed the few things I had carried to the steam room and headed to the room where I was supposed to relax and wait for my service.
Upon opening the door to the “quiet area”, so designated by a sign on the wall, the noise was deafening. All of the chaises that were there for relaxing and waiting in the quiet were full of this same group of women, who spoke loudly, continuously and with no regard for the “quiet zone” sign. After looking around the room from the doorway, I turned around and left, looking for somewhere else to sit.
Back in the locker room area, sitting on the bench at the dressing table would stop anyone else from using the mirror and products there so I continued on. The chair by the entrance was where the attendants could put someone who had just come in, so that didn’t seem right. I continued on to the hot tub area.
There was no one there and several chairs were grouped around the room. I sat in one and breathed a sigh of relief just as the boisterous laughter came through the tiled wall beside me. I decided this was as far as I needed to go if I was to be found when my appointment time came. However, it still wasn’t a quiet, calming area. About then another shell shocked looking patron wandered in to the room, looking as if she were escaping a scary clown. She scanned the area and sat down far from me and the wall that seemed to reverberate with the noise from the other room.
She looked at me and shook her head before picking up a magazine.
Luckily, I was called soon enough and headed back to get my facial. I was given a fine facial that had my skin glowing although it involved more machines than I was used to. I guess in this day and age a machine can do an easier and better job than a human hand? I again will sound old to say I missed the foot massage, the paraffin dip for my hands and the quiet sound of spa music.
Instead I heard what sounded more like Darth Vader trying to breathe through an oxygen tube as a machine pulled the gunk out of my pores and pumped serums in. It did a great job, it just wasn’t as relaxing and personal as I had remembered.
Once the pulling, pushing and tugging was done, I was escorted back to the room where those women still congregated. My lovely aesthetician offered me water and had to move one of the women who had decided to just stand in front of the water cooler, regaling the group with what must have been an hilarious story.
I carried my water to the locker room where I decided to skip any further ablutions and just go home.
Once back in the lobby to pay the bill with one of my gift cards, one of the women came out in her robe to complain about something and I signed the slip and left after hearing this group was part of some kind of insurance convention.
I could not get out fast enough.
I accomplished my mission, to leave with clear glowing skin. The way I got there was not what I had planned. Hopefully, as I dwindle down the amount of my cards, I will have more relaxing and quiet experiences.
