It's my party, I can cry if I want to...

This week I turn thirty-nine. In other words, I'm old enough to legally date someone half my age. Between that and the fact that I helped my partner say good-bye to his father, it's been a long week. So when I called my best friend from Montana, she suggested that we get massages when I get home. While this may seem harmless enough, trust me when I say that it's a bad idea. The last time time we tried this, my dignity fell farther than a new born giraffe, and in case you haven't been paying attention to my karma, I don't necessarily believe it will go any differently this time around either....

See, a few years ago, I talked TB into a spa weekend. We were stressed. We needed it. We DESERVED it. Sure, I found it on-line and it was cheap, but really… how bad could it be? Actually, it doesn’t matter which of the two of us you ask. It was the Bates Motel of spas, down to the creepy guy who checked us in. That weekend, my best friend opted for a body polish, an herbal bath and a deep tissue massage. I got an herbal wrap, a Vichy massage and a pedicure. Do you know what a Vichy massage is? OH MY GOD, ME EITHER! I thought it was a massage with high-pressured shower heads done by a FEMALE masseuse, but clearly it’s not. It’s a massage, done in the shower, by a man, in a rain coat.

But to tell you that part of the story, I have to tell you this part first...

So we check in, and a scary, older man comes to the desk and says, “Which one of you is TB?” Now my best friend is GORGEOUS. So he looks at me (who isn’t), then looks at her, counts his lucky stars, giggles, introduces himself, and sleazily lisps, “I’ll be doing your body polish. How do you want me to take it off you?” Which comes out as, “I’ll be doing your body polith.” At this point, I have to walk away because I’m laughing so hard. No kidding if she could have burned a hole into me with laser vision, she would have. So she asks what her options are, and he replies, “You can wipe it off yourthelf… or I can do it for you.” I don’t remember the details because I was laughing so hard, but I clearly remember her threatening to kill me and saying to him, “Um, I’ll do it myself, thanks!”

After getting checked in (and checked out), we get into our spa robes and they take us into separate rooms. TB goes with the pervert, and I have a lovely woman named Sue who does my very relaxing body wrap. I get done an hour later, and I walk out to the “relaxation” area, where my best friend is sitting, reading People, with her legs crossed, kicking the air. I ask how it went, cause really – how bad could it be, and without looking up, she tersely replies, “it was… OK” and she licks her finger, turns the page and continues to kick her leg and read. We sit there for a few minutes… silently… and I can tell she’s seething. Now, this upsets me, and when I get upset, I get chatty… very chatty, and this drives my best friend NUTS. So she indulges me by listening, but she’s not about to dignify my conversation by participating.

So we’re sitting there, and I’m chatting, when in walks the pervert who did her body polish, and says, “Are you mkromd?” He can tell from the horrified expression on my face that I am, and he says, “I’ll be doing your Vichy massage.” Which again comes out as, “I’ll be doing your Vithy mathage.” For the first time in 20 minutes, my best friend in the whole world looks at me, smiles, and mouths, “Karma is SUCH a bitch.” After a mild panic attack and mouthing back, “help me,” I go into the room, and he explains that this is NOT a massage with a high-powered shower head. There is, in fact, human contact. It is him - in the shower with me on a table getting a massage. He will be touching me. As I’m processing how many points my dignity has dropped, he hands me something the size of a Kleenex and tells me to get naked, lay on the table, and put it across my “backside” which comes out as backthide. I looked at him like, “Really? You’re totally fucking kidding me.” But instead of saying that, I say, “Clearly you don’t know how much ath I have under this robe, cause I need a lot more towel than that.” Being the great guy he is, he hands me TWO washcloth sized towels and walks out. At this point, I lay face down and proceed to cover my ass with these two paper towels.

Clearly, God hates me.

So there I am, naked, in the shower, and in walks this man, in a rain coat, and he locks the door. Then it gets weird. At this point, I say to myself, “Self – if he turns on porn music, it will be a house of horrors for everyone involved... not just yours truly.” Instead he turns on the water and starts rubbing my shoulders. After three minutes, he lisps, “You’re very tenth. Do you know that?” I’m like, “You think? Normally, if you want to get naked in the shower with me it takes a nice dinner and a shit load of tequila.” Instead I say, “Frankly, right now, I’m too weirded out for words.” So to help me, he keeps lisping, “Just relax. It’s a thuper prothedure.”

As the water is pelting into the back of my skull and I’m begging for a sniper in a clock tower to kill me, the only thought that goes through my head is “I’m in hell. Dante was right, Beatrith. Abandon hope all yea who enter here.” Call it therndipity, but at the VERY moment I think I’m in hell, he LITERALLY put his hand into the crack of my ass, folded the washcloth over, and started massaging my butt cheek! So I say to myself, “Self, did he just make a hospital corner in the crack of your ass?” And as I’m trying to convince myself he did not, he does it to the other cheek. Now I’m sure I’m in hell… until he says, “OK, flip over.”

At that moment, I’d had enough. I might be in hell one day, but I’m not going there with him. So I instead I tell him, “See that ass you just made hospital corners in? You stand a better chance of watching a donkey fly out of it than seeing me flip over. We’re done here.” So, he shuts off the music. He shuts off the shower, and he leaves the room. I was so horrified that I ripped the washcloth out of the crack of my ass, yanked my spa robe and my dignity off the floor, and ran back to the “relaxation area” with the shower cap still on my head. My best friend took one look at me and said, “So did he fold the towel down the crack of your ass too? Thought so.”

What do you say to a woman who knows you well enough to know that you have a facial expression for that kind of event? You say the only thing you can say, “Yes, but I only paid a hundred bucks for it. Do you know what I’d have to pay in New York to have a man make hospital corners in my ass?” And to think we’re still best friends?

I'll let you know if we hit the spa, but personally - I hope we don't. I still haven't fully recovered from the last time. Either way, I'll talk to you next week.