Or at least conventional relaxing. Hot tubs top the list; the steamy 104-degree cauldrons of sebaceous human run-off might as well be the giant black pot in which natives regularly try to boil Bugs Bunny. If I'm lucky, I can stick around for upwards of 2 minutes in one sitting (my personal world record) before my internal core temperature reaches 275 degrees Fahrenheit and the silver fillings start melting out of my teeth. Even when sitting in mere swim trunks with only ankles submerged in the water, even on a snowy night, I'm doomed to be more concerned with stuffing snow down my shorts to cool off than the hip conversation within the tub about the ski day, the latest sports teams or whatever the heck people talk about in hot tubs (I never last long enough to find out).
Massages are yet another area where I suck. It always starts off with the masseuse advising me to undress "as much as I feel comfortable" as she slips out of the room. I often wonder if I should take this literally and put MORE clothes on. I also never know where to put my discarded clothes, which makes me wonder if I'm committing a major faux-pas. I decide to just keep them under the covers with me.
The next phase is pressing your face into the droolproof donut-shaped face pillow thing and waiting for the masseuse to creep back into the room. I've had several massages where my face was pressed so tightly into the donut, I had double vision for upwards of one hour (note that I often have a mandatory massage for my work trips). While trying to focus on not drooling, I'm alerted to the return of my poor massager by the slurpy symphony of lotion and hands and the "transcendent" sounds of CDs with names like Oxygene, Gentle Rain, The Passion of Yanni, Nitrogene, Carbone Dioxide, Ground Penetrating Hail, and so on.
The absolute worst part of any massage is when the masseuse demandingly tells me to relax. Instantly I feel like massage loser and there's really nothing I can do about it--someone berating me to relax makes me tense. She might as well have said "make your fingers longer" or "rapidly turn into a seagull" and gotten the same results. And of course, now it's MY fault pressing into the knotty bundles of nerve and muscle hurts and every time I wince, I'm chastised with another "relax". Soon tears of pain are blending in with the puddle of drool on the floor through the face pillow.
Equally as bad is when the poor woman must confront my feet. Thousands of hiking miles have rendered them to resemble armadillos more than walking appendages; the twisted and oft-broken toes slightly resemble smaller versions of alleged bigfoot prints captured in plaster of paris. Oftentimes the massage progresses beyond the feet and I get freaked out tjhat hands that had to overcome the ordeal of feet are now rubbing more tender parts of my body, such as each individual high-strung wire in my hamstrings.
Eventually the whole nightmare ends and I have to find something relaxing to shake off the tension, like playing Super Mario Bros 3 while eating an onion and anchovy pizza. Maybe I should take a cue from Spuds and sport a Hawaiian shirt, throw on a pair of Oakleys and watch people much cooler than myself cavort in hot tubs.
