My Time as a Sushi Sausage

I wanted to spoil myself with a day at the spa with something other than the run-of-the-mill massage and facial combo. I can’t do the mani-pedi thing because the nail filing feels like scratching fingers on a chalkboard. 

I opted for the ‘Exfoliation/seaweed wrap/soothing massage’ package and prepared my best sushi imitation.

The spa greeted me with lavender scents and waterfalls. I sat on a chair that felt like a cloud and settled into the tranquility. 

• • •

My exfoiliatist? massager? wrapper? was a cute little Asian lady named Mei. She gave me some giant baby blue jelly slippers that were surprisingly comfy and led me to my room. She told me to get ready and that she’d be right back.

I’m never really sure what ‘ready’ means. Naked? Undies on? Every place is different. I asked and she said, 

“Undies? Ok.”

Does that mean OK, leave them on? Or undies OK to take off?

I erred on the side of modesty and got under the covers. 

• • •

When she returned, she nonchalantly said, “Oh, this room doesn’t have a bathroom. Do you want to do the treatment here?”

I was about to be exfoliated and wrapped in some weird shit. I’m pretty sure I was going to want to wash this off at some point. 

As if reading my mind, she said, “It’s ok, you can just run naked between rooms, between treatments.”

Um, what?

• • •

I switched rooms. I was utterly weirded out but got under the covers again.

After a little mini massage, I felt better. Mei moved on to the exfoliation — essentially a rubdown with some Himalayan salt. 

What it felt like was that Mei put on extra coarse sandpaper gloves and proceeded to shred my entire body. 

I had some scabs healing from work at the cottage last week. I’m pretty sure Mei scraped them all off and I was bleeding to death on the massage table. 

By the time it was time to flip over, my body had gone numb and it was starting to feel nice.

• • •

Mei ushered me into the shower. My undies were a salty shredded mess. I rinsed off salt from places even my shower poofie has never been. 

I stopped caring because I discovered how unbelievably soft my skin was. Like making babies jealous soft.

Through the shower door I saw Mei Dexter-ing the massage table. She had a giant roll of cellophane that she had draped everywhere. Someone was going to die today.

• • •

For some reason, I had envisioned the ‘seaweed wrap’ as being covered with a giant wakame salad. But nothing was as it seemed in this Narnia spa.

The ‘seaweed’ looked like a bowl of booger soup. I closed my eyes as she started to paint me with it, and it felt wonderful. It was warm and soothing and smelled like green tea.

She then proceeded to ‘wrap’ me. I was now a sausage. 

I was rolled up in cellophane casing, tucked in a blanket, with a towel over my eyes to shield the light — literally a pig in a blanket. She said she’d be back in 10 minutes — presumably to poke me with a temperature stick and turn me over.

• • •

When she unwrapped me, I looked like a swamp creature. 

Mei is family now and there’s no shame. I walked naked to the shower and no one cared. She was busy prepping for the massage.

I was expecting a regular massage, but then something magic happened. 

First, it felt like a hot water bottle on my legs. After a few minutes, she ‘unfolded’ the bag, and it felt like a giant warm square of goodness. 

Then she started massaging me with it, rolling it along my back, but it didn’t seem possible. It was too soft to be rubber and too flexible to be a traditional bottle shape. It wasn’t plastic because I felt no edges.

It was one of the nicest, warmest massages I’ve ever received, but I couldn’t focus because I couldn’t figure out what the eff she was massaging me with.

• • •

I finally gave in and just enjoyed my a-Mei-zing massage. Life is too short to worry about warm, gelatinous, magic massage bags.