Sarcasm Bites

It was going to be a bissful day at the spa. We’d float in the pool, drink in the hot tub, and chat over exotic salads. I’m never the girliest girl in the room, but I’d really hate to meet the she-beast who’d willingly turn that down.

The drive north is almost ninety miles, but the conversation is free-flowing and the California scenery breathtaking, so it feels much shorter. Soon after arriving, we’re sipping peach bellinis in a large Roman-styled hot tub, happily chatting away. Aaaah …perfect!, I think to myself.

After several rounds of animated chit-chat, someone suggests a dip in the mineral baths, given that the spa is near hot springs. As the only hot springs newbie, I innocently set off for our next self-indulgent adventure.

As we near the mineral baths, my nostrils start doing that pinch/flare thing they do when immersed in a stench as fetid as this one. Failing, yet again, to contain my socially inappropriate reaction, my eyes begin to well up with tears of deep-seated disgust. What IS that? I wonder silently as the girls continue talking, seemingly unfazed.

The smell is an unmistakable variation on Eau de Rotten Egg, and I accidentally let out a loud, gutteral ucccchhh! One of the women exiting the baths looks over at me, and adds a chipper “smells a little funny, huh?” I nod, attempt a smile and silently add, A little funny? Lady, you ever heard of Kleenex? Pretty sure you’ve got a timber yard up there.

By the time we’re standing in front of the baths, the smell is so intense, I feel like I’m eating someone’s actual farts. I swallow optimistically, hoping to overpower an increasingly violent urge to spew, and then lower down into the roiling pit of fart water that awaits me. Relax, it’s just sulfur, I tell myself. Yes, it stinks of butt discharge, but it’s not, so just breeeathe… Be calm, reeeelax… Goddamnit, this f*** reeks! Okay, come on now, keep it together. Swallow hard, smile and keep your damn mouth SHUT. All you have to do is SURVIVE this.

Five minutes after stepping out of the mineral baths, I manage to stave off my gag reflex, but am still forcefully blowing air out of my nose, hoping to rid my nostrils of the agonizing stink. It’s a tad irrational, and I’m well aware that a rogue bugger can cut loose at any second, but I just don’t care. After voluntarily soaking my entire body in ass crack consommé, I figure my claim on dignity has grown a bit feeble.

Post-lunch, a few of the girls broach the subject of mud, which is another unique feature of the spa. I hesitantly agree, figuring the mineral baths are surely the low point. It’s probably some kind of exotic mud that’s great for your skin, my inner glass-half-full persona pipes in reassuringly.

We enter the arched area called “Club Mudd,” and I immediately register the head count, which must be considerable, given how many dozens of lounge chairs are taken. Ahh, phew! I think, this is popular… good sign. After setting my towel down on the one chair we manage to commandeer, I look around to discern how this mud thing is done.

And that’s when I see it—a giant, man-made sinkhole brimming with disturbingly chunky brown water, which, I must admit, sparkles rather nicely in the sunlight. About a dozen people are standing in the dookie pool, which rises to a politely modest few inches above their butts.

In the middle of this, the planet’s most welcoming of toilets, is a podium overflowing with a wet towering mass of an orange-brown solid that we’re apparently calling “mud” today. Never mind, of course, that tomorrow it shall be deemed “diarrhea.”

As I stand there, gazing at King Kong’s Almighty Throne of Everlasting Relief, my inner-commentator awakens with a thunderous roar, First the fart water, now communal colon-cleansing? What is WITH you people? Don’t you know how much lawyers cost these days?

My mind detours back to the scene before me as I begin to ponder the limits of my own adventurousness. Can I, or can’t I? Will I, or won’t I?

Then, out of nowhere, I remember a promise I made to myself years ago, a vow never to shy away from things that scare me. You dumbass! I mutter as I extend my leg toward the ladder that leads into this new, extra moist bridge to my fellow man.

The psychological trauma has plumbed my very depths by this point, and I no longer have the strength to remain entirely conscious. As if in a trance, I slowly reach my hand toward the podium that holds the coveted pile of gleaming poop. I reach, grab, then smear. Down my left arm, then the right. Up my stomach, across my chest.

My heartbeat slows and I’m almost feeling sedate when a giant, slick floaty hits my thigh. My entire body jerks to the left and I let out a very loud, freakishly primitive-sounding grunt/yell, something along the lines of ugghaarrghucheeehhh! The three, maybe four, dozen people who hear my ape call then proceed to watch me make a blustering, stumbling beeline for the ladder.

You’re almost through this, I tell myself. Just wash it off, and everything will be okay.

There’s a line for both sets of showers—seems the No. 2 suit really takes hold, requiring an intense head-to-toe rub down—so I do my best to appear spa-like, as if I’m just enjoying the great weather and my full-body armor of caked dung.

As I wait, I randomly remember the instructor of a recent hot yoga class encouraging us to lean deeper into a pose because it “improves elimination.” What sickos! I accidentally say out loud as everything starts to come together in my head.

Turns out, this “California state of mind” thing isn’t at all what I’d hoped it would be.