Umm, do you smell that???

I am going to save you reading this blog, so that I can make sure that you absorb the moral. The moral to the following story is: The Internet is the devil and will trick you.

I recently had the pleasure of spending a ladies weekend in Palm Springs for Paige's birthday. Lots of lounging, amateur barbecuing (only minor hair singeing) and large vegetable carving. The plan was to celebrate another fab year for Poncho Paige and sneak in some spa time. Kyra was the organizer and planner. She did some research online and found a spa for us to relax and have spa "things" done to ourselves. I am an adventurous sort and enjoy getting "off the beaten path". We all perused the website and selected our treatments. The place looked nice. Careful camera angles and a nice font goes a long way, as we later learned. I thought I would try the mud wrap. The adjective that caught my eye in the description was "detox". Well hell! I cant think of anyone who needs more detoxing than me.

So the fateful day of our spa experience arrived and we hustled our way out of town. I guess this should have been the first inkling that things might not be all that they seemed. Once you leave Palm Springs proper it quickly gets dirrtty. I mean a toilet used as a flower planter on the stoop of the mobile home dirrtyy. We were kinda in a hurry due to oversleeping, so we weren't paying very close attention.

We arrived at the "resort" and quickly checked in. We were ushered to the locker room to change and begin our treatment. Paige and I had both signed up for the mud wrap, so we toddled off. The first thing that cause raised eyebrows was the smell. Paige looked at me and said "Do you smell that?". I brushed it off as being the mineral pool. Although as we scurried past the mineral pool there seemed to be suspicious items floating on the top of the water. In the locker room, we were handed robes and towels and lead into a small.....shack, for lack of a better word. We were handed these weird paper items and told that they were our undergarments to wear during our treatment. Basically they were two pieces of toilet paper strung together with dental floss....and not in a good way. There was also a nasty looking shower cap. I was concerned. The attendant (I say that generously) left us standing in the shack (with a dangerously low ceiling - Paige is tall) with our toilet paper bikinis. Paige and I stared at each other and started laughing. There was a shower curtain that could be pulled to divide the shack. We pulled the curtain across and started trying to maneuver the floss. There was no way these things were made for any person that was not an adolescent Asian boy but we sorta draped them across the important parts and hopped on to our respective treatment tables.

What happened next should not be done to farm animals much less humans. Specifically humans who paid to have it done to them. A woman who looked suspiciously like Nurse Ratchet came in wearing rubber gloves and carrying a bucket. I started to feel the itch of concern. She reached into the bucket and started slapping insanely hot cow dung onto my body. It smelled bad and was scorching. Fortunately it cooled quickly. Unfortunately as it cooled the stinkier it became. So she slogs this muck all over me. I am told to flip over and I get it on the backside (again not in a good way). Fuck, I think to myself, she has the bedside manner of a mortician. Next I looked down to see her unfolding what appear to be someone elses' dirty sheets. Apparently, this was the herbal wrap. Which consisted of being wrapped like a mummy in sheet that smelled as though they had been dipped in a week old vat of Lipton tea. Once Paige and I both completely mudded and wrapped, the woman turned and asked if we would like the shower curtain dividing the space pulled back. "Sure!", I say. I must confer with Paige. I needed to be sure that this was as icky as I was perceiving. As soon as we are alone, I glance over at Paige (our range of motion is severely limited by the sheet wrapped around our necks) we snort and being giggling. We are now forced to stare at the ceiling of the shack which seemed to be leaking some sort of rusty liquid. Great! We were left alone for a while to contemplate how we got into this situation. Then the women were back. I was partially unwrapped and then lead through the locker room, covered in mud and shivering in my wet sheet. She pointed me toward the showers, where I was told to rinse myself off. You don't have to tell me twice. I get under the water and try to scrape the fertilizer from between my butt cheeks. Suddenly THAT woman is back again brandishing a Windex bottle and telling me to step out of the shower. I am thinking to myself "Dude!!!! I am far from clean!!". Have spent nasty nights whacked out on Goldschlager pucking in the trash can outside the local taco stand and felt MUCH cleaner than I do now. She proceeded to spray me down with whatever was in the Windex bottle (I am pretty sure it was some kinda Orange Oil cleanser-for kitchen stove tops) and kick me back out into the locker room.

Now there is violated and then there is VIOLATED. I will say in all candor that it was probably the former rather than the later. BUT if it looks like shit and smells like shit........well, you know.