Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly, Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why It Often Sucks in the City, or Who Are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door to Me? (5 page)

Anyway, our stove is gas, and without the benefit of burners I can’t cook those elaborate pork-chop dinners that have definitely become my least favorite part of the
Fletch Works a Real Job While I Stay Home and Attempt to Write
deal. However, I’m still in charge of meals, so I have to get creative after Fletch complains about all the microwave soup and hot dogs I try to force on him. The subsequent
All McDonald’s, All the Time
episode does not go well either, regardless of how it may have worked out for Morgan Spurlock. So I buy six kinds of freshly sliced meat and three interesting cheeses from the deli and get in touch with my Inner Sandwich. I also give the George Foreman grill a whirl, with mixed results.
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However, this week I’ve discovered the easiest-to-prepare, most satisfying meal yet. You may now address me as
Jen, Queen of the Crock Pot!
I throw meat, vegetables, and some dry soup mix in the crock around nine a.m., stir a couple of times throughout the day, and by six p.m., voilà! Dinner is served. Fletch picked out the recipes, so he’s happy, too.

I’d almost be tempted to not get the gas turned back on, especially because I’m so terrified of explosions. Seriously, it seems like every week you see some idiot standing outside next to a gaping hole that used to be his bungalow, saying, “Yeah, I kinda smelled gas, but I didn’t think nothin’ of it.” Granted, I have
a lot
of irrational fears, such as opening the toilet lid and finding a severed head, drinking a can of soda and swallowing the fingertip or hypodermic needle floating inside, and being killed by a gigantic falling icicle. But this last one actually happens every year! I used to save the newspaper >clippings about the incidents until Fletch found them and laughed at me.

The only problem is no gas equals no hot water and our tap water is cold. Like fresh from a mountain stream in a beer commercial cold. Like, “Hello, hypothermia, nice to meet you!” cold. While we wait for the gas servicemen to get around to us, Fletch has been showering at his gym. He told me I could get a temporary membership, but I’m not sure I want to run on a treadmill solely to make it look like I’m not there just to use their shower. Until I take that plunge,
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I’ve come up with an in-house ablution solution.

I fill the tub halfway with freezing tap water and I let it come up to room temperature. Then I dump in pots of boiling water I’ve heated in the microwave and the electric kettle. The upside is all the heating and pouring makes me feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder in her Little Condo on the Prairie, but the downside is it takes a good two hours of pouring and dumping and I can only get tiny snatches of writing done between boil cycles.

But so far, it’s still better than going to the gym.

The gas man cometh tomorrow, which is good because if I have to fill that goddamned tub one more time, something very bad is going to happen, like me going to a cardio funk class. I haven’t felt fully clean in almost two weeks. Yes, I normally love baths and I take them all the time, but for reasons more literary than hygienic.
15
I will actually shower after sitting in the tub because I hate the idea of rinsing in dirty water. At present, I feel all filmy and oily and I’d be willing to commit a felony for five minutes of hot running water.

I’m almost ready to brave step aerobics when I remember a place on Belmont Ave. Back when I consumed spa services like coffee and Prada bags, I had a bead on every good facility in the city. I’d heard tons of enthusiastic praise about Thousand Waves Spa for Women on Belmont, although I’d never gone. Their specialties were herbal wraps and massages, whereas I was more of a facial and pedicure kind of girl. I never got comfortable with the idea of people touching me and not accomplishing anything (for example, sloughing off excess skin), and now the idea of a massage makes me a bit squeamish. (It goes without saying whatever service I purchased entailed wearing a full set of underwear.)

However, I also remembered this place sold spa passes, and for $20 you got to indulge in their Jacuzzi, redwood sauna, eucalyptus steam room, lockers, beauty products, new age tea, and shower facilities, exactly what I need today. With a quick phone call I verify this information. Confirmed, I shove my swimsuit in a bag, and off I go.

I’m greeted at the door of this Japanese-style spa and leave my shoes next to all the others lined up against the wall. The receptionist talks about how this place is a calm oasis and their goal is to help me relax and find balance. They ask that I respect the other patrons by refraining from cell-phone use and keeping my voice down. “No problem!” I heartily agree before clamping my hand over my too-loud mouth. “Sorry!” I whisper.

I make my way down the long hall and am greeted by the most wonderful fragrances—fruity floral body wash, clean linen-scented candles, tangy, sinus-opening eucalyptus, smoky wood warmed by the sauna, and the chemical bite of the hot tub’s chlorine. To most people, chlorine’s kind of a repulsive smell, but for those of us who spent their summers submerged, it’s as pleasant as a sunny day when your only chore is to lie on a raft until you feel like riding your bike to the pro shop to buy a new Izod.
16

After an extra-soapy preliminary shower, I ease myself into the hundred-and-twenty-degree Jacuzzi, wallowing up to my ears. I bring the book
Wicked
with me as it’s already misshapen from too many spills into the bath. The Jacuzzi is huge and I’m able to float in the very center, spreading my arms wide, without touching any of the sides. I look like the Vitruvian Man—if he were wearing a pink-and-black Miraclesuit, that is. As the bubbles begin to buffer me against the sides, I feel clean down to my very soul.

Since I’m here, I may as well give my pores a treat, so I leave the tub and enter the sauna. I grab a cold drink and lay down my towel before ladling water over the hot rocks. The stones hiss and pop and the room practically reverberates with heat. I take a washcloth filled with icy water and wipe all the toxins off my face. I squeeze it over my shoulders and the water evaporates before it even hits the wooden bench.

The great irony here is I hit the cold-water-plunge shower between services, and it’s the exact same temperature as the water I’m paying $20 to avoid at home.

The heavily scented steam room is a soppy slice of paradise. I breathe in as deeply as I can, and I can practically feel the little bitty alveoli widening. When I was in sixth grade I had to be hospitalized for a severe case of pneumonia—ever since then, my lungs have felt tight. But today after spending so much time in the steam room, air trapped since the Carter administration comes out when I exhale.

Even the plain old shower is plain old terrific with all the water pressure and fine assortment of scented body products. And yet the experience is just shy of ecstasy.

Why?

Too much naked!

Everywhere I look there’s, gah!—more exposed flesh. And I am just not a naked person. I’ll happily wear a bathing suit on the world’s most crowded beach and feel okay about myself, so it’s not so much a body image thing. Pretty much it’s an uncomfortable-with-naked thing. Also, I’d prefer to avoid
your
cooties,
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and the best way to do that is to keep as many layers of spandex between us as possible. Point? If I glance up from my book and notice your Brazilian wax headed toward me, don’t be surprised when I fucking
fly
out of the hot tub. Because, really? I can live a long, happy life without ever knowing you’ve shaved your pubic hair into a clever shape. And your *
shudder
* piercings? Well, those should be between you, your physician, and the guy who works the metal detector at the airport. (I’ve adopted a strict Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and For God’s Sake, Don’t Show policy.)

I can’t help it—I’m extremely modest. When I was a kid, I’d put on a bathing suit to play with Barbies in the tub. As an adult, nary a single Vegas hotel Jacuzzi has seen my pasty white rear end, even when I’m staying alone. (Yes, room service thinks it’s hilarious when I tell them “Come in” and I’m floating in the giant tub wearing a one-piece. But I don’t want to drip on the floor or slip on the marble and that wine’s not going to serve itself.) (Shut up. I tip well.) Even during my most trash-can-punch-soaked sorority days, I never crowded in an open fraternity bathroom and peed in tandem with all my sisters.

I think spas are supposed to have a bit of an “Amazons at Paradise Island” vibe to them and that’s all right, I guess.
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And I totally see how someone would prefer not to sweat all over her $125 Miraclesuit while sitting in the steam room—considering all the struts and trusses they contain, they’d probably rust. I even get that there’s something incredibly liberating and primordial about floating nude in the hot tub, yet there’s still no way I’m going to do it, so please don’t give me the “it’s perfectly natural” speech. Bowel movements are also perfectly natural, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t want to take one in the center of Nordstrom’s shoe department.

But these women who are walking from one service to the next without benefit of a towel? Un! Comfortable! I grudgingly understand if you want to scoot from the hot tub to the sauna without dampening your robe. Personally, I wouldn’t do it; however, this is totally appropriate behavior. You know, naked now, nice warm, dry robe later. So I would probably get in trouble for violating everyone’s calm if I were to yell, “Cover your shame, damn it!” And yet the temptation is large.

I feel about as clean as I can get without actually shucking off a layer of epidermis, so I decide to spend my last half hour in the Quiet Room. Yeah, I’d like to remain in the Jacuzzi, but I just can’t take any more naked because, really, how do you
not
look? As competitive as I am, I’ve been comparing myself to everyone else here and so far I am not happy with the results. I do have a better figure than that one chick, but it’s only because she’s at least seventy and had a mastectomy.
Yep, you may have beat cancer, but I beat you!
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I towel off and put on my underwear before wrapping my robe tightly around me. I walk down the stairs to the dim, serene Quiet Room, where everyone is delightfully covered in layers of white terry cloth. Wicker chairs with big squashy cushions are scattered throughout the large room, with lots of space between them in order to foster peace and serenity. I grab an
Us Weekly
from the magazine rack and a cup of organic green tea, swirling in lots of honey. Save for a faint bit of whale music, the room is so still I can practically hear my heartbeat.

Magazine unopened, I sit and sip the scalding tea. As I silently reflect on the day, I have to laugh at myself. God, how did I ever get so uptight? I mean, I really need to (a) relax, and, barring that, at least (b) learn to mind my own business. What right do I have to be uncomfortable if someone decides to shed her clothing before getting in a well-chlorinated, single-sex hot tub? This place isn’t exactly a set for
Girls Gone Wild
, so it’s not like anything untoward is going to happen once people have derobed. Grandma is not about to shake her remaining breast at the camera. And who died and made me the Clothing-Always Police? No one here’s done a thing wrong, yet I have the nerve to sit in judgment based on my own ridiculous prejudices. It’s not fair and it’s not right and I recognize that. And I’m more than a little ashamed of myself.

Resolved: Naked is a natural state and totally appropriate in a spa setting.

And I am fine with that.

For
you.

I sit back and enjoy my tea, pleased at the idea of possibly being a better person.

However, when some random girl, naked as a jaybird, strolls into the Quiet Room of the Thousand Waves Spa and spends ten minutes bent over
right in front of me
with her little brown starfish waving hello to God and everyone while she paws through the magazine rack in search of the most current issue of the
New Yorker
, please know the line between “appropriate spa behavior” and “graphic peep show” has been crossed.

And if the air disturbed by my resulting scream causes yet another Indonesian tidal wave, well…I’m sorry.

But it’s totally Fletch’s fault.

To:
angie_at_home, carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work

From:
[email protected]

Subject:
more tales from a terrible wife

Setting: Skybox at Wrigley Field, last Saturday afternoon.

Fletch:
Our wives are going to die when they find out who we met.

Jeff:
They’ll go apeshit. My wife watches every week.

Fletch:
Jen watches a lot, too.

Jeff:
You know what we should do? Let’s not tell them—we’ll wait until they see the pictures.

Fletch:
Good idea. I’m sure Jen’s reaction will be priceless.

Fast-forward to today at the Costco photo booth, 4:30 p.m.

Me:
These pictures are very nice, sweetie.

Fletch:
(picking one out of the stack)
And what do you think of this one?

Me:
Your shirt is cute.

Fletch:
(trying to suppress a smile)
Uh-huh? And?

Me:
And what?

Fletch:
Anything else you want to say?

Me:
Your hair looks nice.

Fletch:
And?

Me:
Um, you aren’t quite as bloated as those photos from the Bears game where it looks like you swallowed a whole keg?

Fletch:
And??

Me:
(glancing at the photo again)
Who’s the little guy? Is he one of your clients, too?

Fletch:
Does he look familiar?

Me:
Kind of. Wait, is that…is that…Ferris? My old boss from when I worked at that bar in college?

Fletch:
No. Look and think. You
know
him.

Me:
Errr…one of your account managers? Although it seems like if he were entertaining clients, he should have dressed a bit more professionally.

Fletch:
(exasperated)
No, it’s James Denton.

(silence)

Fletch:
From
Desperate Housewives
?

(silence)

Fletch:
Which I know you watch because you
make me watch it with you?

(silence)

Fletch:
The plumber??

Me:
Oh, okay. I didn’t recognize him without Teri Hatcher attached to his face. Yeah, I see it now.

Fletch:
That’s it? That’s all you have to say?

Me:
I guess I didn’t realize he was scrawny. No wonder those housewives are so desperate.