I’m not sure
what this says about my character, but I love spas. And I mean love that
borders on an obsessive intense passion the likes of which is rarely
encountered outside of a Mills and Boon novel set in the 18th
century about the forbidden passion between a poor working class seamstress and
her square jawed, devastatingly good looking, brooding landlord. If that
description strikes you as being a little bit excessive, it doesn’t even begin
to convey the depth of my emotions for a spa.
Whoever invented the spa should be
canonized and a little altar put up in every household. I love the very idea of it, a hallowed cocoon whose sole
purpose of existence is to pamper, sooth and comfort with emollients, scented
steam and essential oils. Just the word makes
me happy.
And when it comes to spas, I’m
famously non-discriminatory. Any place that requires me to do nothing but be
still while other people do all the work qualifies as a spa to me.
“So, by that definition, I guess a
bus is a spa?” Amanda said to me the other day.
“You’re just being obtuse now,” I
replied primly as I sent a text message to my therapist at Chien Chi Tow to
confirm my appointment that afternoon. “I don’t know why you won’t come with me
for the herbal steam. It’s just amazing!”
“It’s not even a spa!” Amanda said
firmly with the kind of authority that you find only in Harvard graduates.
“What kind of a self respecting spa is located in Bendemeer Road?”
“Well, it’s not the Ritz-Carlton,” I
admitted, “but really, it’s just the most amazing thing ever. Look, just try it
once. I’ll even pay for it!”
But it was no good. Saffy, of
course, who has no qualms about going anywhere outside of Districts 9 and 10,
was up for a new experience.
“Amanda really needs to lighten up,”
she said in the cab. “But listen, there’s no hanky-panky in this place right?
Because, I’m really not in the mood for it today. I really do just need a nice
pampering session because…”
I frowned as I mentally rewound the
last few seconds. “Wait a minute,” I held up my hand, stopping Saffy in
mid-sentence. “What do you mean you’re not in the mood for it today? You mean there’s hanky panky in
your spa sessions on other days?”
The sudden colouring on Saffy’s
cheeks was instructive. She turned her attention on the taxi driver. “Uncle, if
you turn off here, we can get to Bendemeer Road faster!”
Later that evening, Saffy was
careful to avoid her little misstep as she recounted her Chien Chi Tow
experience in graphic, blow-by-blow detail to Amanda.
“Oh my God, it was so amazing!” she
said.
“I don’t see how it could be…”
Amanda began, but Saffy was on a roll.
“It really is nothing to look at
from the street and if I hadn’t know better, I would probably have walked right
past it, and the interiors have that gawdawful fluourescent lighting and the
change room is this dinky little cubicle and to get to the toilet you have to
wear communal slippers but the staff are so sweet and because they weren’t too
busy the auntie basically stood next to my steam box and chatted with me the
entire time but really I haven’t sweated so much in such a long time and you
would think that I’d get claustrophobic because you remember how I get when I
get into the toilet on a plane but I didn’t at all and I think it’s because of
all those wonderful herbs they put in so I just felt like I was being gently
poached but in a good way because every so often the auntie would dab my brow
and when it was all over twenty minutes later and she lifted the lid I swear I
felt so amazing and oddly so clean…”
Amanda spotted a gap and dived in.
“I don’t see how sweating profusely in a confined space is…”
“But you don’t understand because
the sweating opens up all your pores to release all the crappy toxins and then
the good stuff from the herbs go in and cleanse your blood and your system and
when you come out and dry down your skin feels so smooth and clean and…”
“…And you smell like double boiled
chicken soup!” I said, anxious that I not be left out of the conversation.
“Oh my God, that’s exactly it!” sighed Saffy whose favourite dish
in the world is doubled boiled chicken soup.
Amanda says right there is another
reason why people go the Ritz-Carlton spa.
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