Hot and stoned in western Canada

For Christmas, my in-laws give me a gift certificate to a spa near Banff. I am in an everybody-just-keep-your-mitts-off-of-me frame of mind, so I opt for the deluxe superduper organic mud seaweed ankle wrap paraffin soak fab buff and polish pedicure. Aside from reiki, which I tend to think of as the Emperor’s New Spa Service, I figure a pedicure is my best bet for minimizing human touch.

I have never had a professional pedicure. My at-home pedicures consist of me hunched on the floor of our dim dungeon of a bathroom, globbing red polish on the sides of toes, getting high on fumes, praying no one will interrupt me mid-schleppicure and force me to run down the hall through thickets of dog fur and tiny Polly Pockets accessories, all of which will adhere to my wet toenails.

When my sister-in-law Jill (David’s brother’s wife, who has also been gifted with a spa certificate) and I arrive at the spa, the woman behind the desk informs me that they have double-booked the pedicure folks. My pedicure is now completely out of the question. I sheepishly hang my head, knowing I have somehow caused this to happen. I have very strong irrational guilt reflexes, finely tuned, very responsive, virtuoso! Fortunately, irrational guilt is always in! So Catholic school! So retro!

But Jill the Defender pounces on the poor woman, demanding with Staten Island flair to know what the spa is willing to offer me in place of a pedicure. The woman runs for cover and consultation in the back.

I hide behind my clipboard and medical form (Have you been previously diagnosed as likely to die of sheer mortification if anyone besides your spouse touches your unclothed body? Yes. Will you be offended if your massage therapist is unable to repress his/her revulsion? Yes. Do you have any pet names for your cellulite and/or varicose veins that you would like your massage therapist to use during your treatment? No. Would you like to be spanked by your massage therapist or provided with any additional humiliation services? No preference.)

The verdict comes back: Any facial I want. Or any aromatherapy treatment. Sniffing oil sounds hands-off enough for me.

“Are you kidding me? A facial? Aromatherapy? That’s the best you can offer?” Jill is a customer-service pitbull.

I spend more time with my nose pressed to my clipboard as the verdict is overturned. A new verdict comes back: Any treatment I want. A full-body wrap with any dead sea creature on hand, a hearty whipping with a birch log, a hot stone massage. No extra charge, anything at all, at the price of the Lost Pedicure.

“Ooh, the hot stone massage is amazing, eh?” one woman in the waiting area offers. “You should go for that.”

I consider this. I like the concept of inanimate objects working as a buffer zone between me and the massage therapist. Hot steamy little bodyguards! Step away from the cellulite. No pictures, please. Back away from the love handles. No fondling the talent.

“I’m in,” I say.

I am introduced to my masseuse, a tall, quirky brunette. It takes a medium-sized, quirky brunette to know a tall, quirky brunette. Let’s call her Mika. “You can put your clothes on that chair,” says Mika, in a tone. It is a tone. I am not sure what variety of tone, but it is definitely a tone, not simply “You can put your clothes on that chair,” but “You can put your clothes on that chair” or “You can put your clothes on that chair.”

When people talk to me, I hear formatting.

“You can leave your panties on,” she says. I blush. I always blush when I hear the word panties. I am going to make myself a T-shirt that says PLEASE DON’T TALK TO ME ABOUT PANTIES.

Mika leaves and I strip fast to prevent mooning her upon her reentry. No one needs that sort of thing just before supper. I assume the face-down position with my head in the padded horseshoe and struggle to haul the sheet up and over my tush, nearly dislocating my elbows.

Mika returns. I am not double-jointed and thus have not managed to cover my rump with the sheet. “Cute panties,” she says. I have had a few massages in my life, and I scan my brain for any recollection of underpants compliments. File not found.

“Uh, thanks,” I say.

Suddenly, Mika snaps the elastic waistband of my underpants. Hard. My chin falls through the horseshoe and onto the floor. I am in an alternate universe, a lewd place where masseuses finger your underpants and snap them.

Mika goes about her stoning prep as if nothing out of the ordinary has just occurred. Perhaps she is mildly epileptic? Perhaps the button of her hemp tunic has caught on the elastic of my underpants? Many, many explanations, surely.

Obscene squishy puckery oil sounds off to my right. “These are no ordinary stones,” says Mika. “They’re organic stones.”

I retrieve my chin and press my face harder against the fluffy horseshoe to prevent a fit of nervous giggling.

“Organic rocks?” I mumble into the terrycloth.

“VOLCANIC STONES. I said VOLCANIC.”

I can feel an attack of inappropriateness coming on. I try to chew the horseshoe and think of a field of broken toys strewn with dead kittens.

“I harvested them myself, from the ocean,” says Mika. “These are not stones from the Internet. These are stones with soul, with spirit. These stones have stories.”

“What ocean?” It is important to differentiate.

“The Pacific.” She is very annoyed with me.

“Harvested from the Pacific. A nature harvest. Very natural.”

“Yes,” says Mika.

I try to share. I have never harvested stones, but I have seen some nature recently. “I saw a bighorn sheep today. And a snowshoe hare. How about that. Now what do you—ahHHAAAH!”

Mika has finished lubing up the hot stones and has gotten down to business. She presses the little volcanic wonders into my flesh, skidding them all the way up the back of my thighs. The dead kittens make room for images of lit trails of gasoline and Evel Knievel stunts. They flood my overtaxed brain.

“Ahh-HAAAH!” I say. “It’s very…ahhhh…OH…oh my—”

“Isn’t it something?”

It is something. I manage to keep breathing as the flames engulf me, a la Joan of Arc. “It’s not every day that you get to experience a completely new sensation,” I say. I can smell my scorched flesh, my legs transforming into strips of human bacon.

“A new sensation! Exactly! Aren’t you clever,” says Mika, jamming the stones into my gluteus magna cum laude. “Be sure to tell me if the pressure is too much.”

“Well, now that you mention it—”

Mika ignores my whimpering and seems to be doing a handstand on my rear end. “Some of my clients say that I like to pretend that the muscles are men and I’m taking it out on them! Isn’t that funny! Taking it out on them! Because they know I hate men! Ha!”

“You hate men? All men?”

More stones burrow into my flesh, becoming one with my femur. “Of course not!” said Mika. “Only most of them! No, totally kidding! When’s your birthday?”

“June 22nd.”

“Really? That was the day of my first wedding!”

“You renewed your vows?”

Now she is searing my upper back. “Different men! Ha! Ha ha! Now I’m dating a guy that people say is Daffy Duck on crack! Ha! You can flip over now!”

I meekly obey. “Well, he must have some redeeming qualities,” I say. She is making me very nervous.

“Daffy Duck’s got broad shoulders. Daffy Duck’s got a real tight ass and knows how to dance. Hot. But tonight I’m going dancing with four cowboys while he’s out of town. I can’t wait.”

“Cowboys dance?” I say. Mika ignores me. She is sautéing the stones again. “Are you going to put them on my face?” I ask.

“Yes. When I DROP THEM ON YOUR FACE,” she says. She squishes more oil onto her hands. “Totally kidding! Ha!”

My passive-aggressive masseuse begins placing stones on my forehead, on the hollow of my throat, on my sternum, on my belly. The one on the hollow of my throat is disturbing me. I am growing agitated. I cannot swallow. I do not want a paperweight on my throat.

“Um, the one on my throat feels kind of unpleasant. Do you think we can maybe—“

“Of COURSE IT DOES,” she coos. “That’s your throat chakra. Obviously, you have a lot to say, and you’re not expressing it.”

I have been with my in-laws for three weeks, on my best behavior, so this is a distinct possibility.

“Interesting,” I say. I am trying to gargle with my own spit to dislodge the stone.

She plucks the stone from my chakra and fires up my shoulders. “You need to go stand in a field and scream. That’s what you need. Let it all out.”

I think Mika needs to stand in a field and scream for a very long time. I try to picture myself standing in a field and screaming and punching trees as my Canadian in-laws watch nervously from the car. I start laughing. I cannot stop.

I am irritating Mika. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know why that’s so funny.”

I manage to get myself under control. Then Mika starts jamming hot rocks in between my toes. It is obscene.

I crack up again. Hysterical psych-ward laughing.

“My, aren’t you just a giggler. Adorable.” She does not sound pleased.

“It’s just, well, it seems a little intimate. The toe thing.” I am struggling to control myself, but my toes are being violated. She has just deflowered my toes. My toes are no longer virgins and they have no one to talk to except my ankles, who will never understand what they have been through.

Mika abandons my toes and shoves a stone into my kneecap. “Are you getting enough action?”

I open my eyes to stare at her. “Did you just ask me if I’m getting enough action?”

“Are you? Oh, there you go again. Aren’t you something. Just adorable.” She wedges a flaming stone into my armpit.

I am convulsing. I am going rigid. Steaming stones pop from my body and onto the floor. My hysterical laughter is bouncing off the flimsy walls and bleeding through the cracks into other people’s spa treatments. I am not the ideal client.

I try to calm my wheezing. “I’ve just…never…had a massage therapist…ask me…if I’m getting any.”

“Well?” she demands.

“I think I’m doing okay in that department.”

“Let me just say that your sex chakra seems a little blocked.”

“I’ll tell my husband.”

“Your heart chakra seems open, though.” She is wrapping up. She has not touched my arms. I am afraid to ask her to touch my arms. They feel very cold in comparison to the rest of my body, virtually hypothermic.

“How can you tell? About my heart chakra.” I have regained control. I have brought back the dead kittens, and they are helping.

“I’m a reiki master. And I do voice-overs,” she says.

That’s it. Game over. The dead kittens in my brain morph into Daffy Duck the crack addict and all hope of recovery disappears. There is no going back. Howls and snorts. Gulping and shrieking. Stones rain down on the floor.

“My goodness! Our time is up already! I just hate to leave you!” says Mika. She snaps on the lights and hurries from the room.

I am out of control. Wave after wave. I am Having A Fit. When I make my way out to the booking area, I snort loudly. Everyone glares at me.

“That was you, wasn’t it?” asks my sister-in-law. “I could hear you the whole time. Everyone could hear you.”

“She told me that my chakras say I need to go scream in a field. Then she violated my toes and asked me if I’m getting laid.” I am howling again. I am weeping. I am warm jiggling Jell-O.

Jill stares at me, then bundles me off to the car. “I can’t believe you let her talk to you like that.”

I wipe my eyes. I try to take deep breaths. No go. We pass a good-sized field. I make a mental note.

That night over dinner, my in-laws ask me about my massage. Jill and I look down at our plates.

“It was fine,” I say. “Just fine.”

55 comments January 23rd, 2006