Spa Boy #1

Before I begin today's blog about the silliness of the rich and stupid, I need to tell you about the dangers of percocet. For the past 18 years I have told patients that any narcotic pain reliever can cause constipation. Never having needed one it was all just professional advice learned from my pharmacology text book. Of course, I've had to deal professionally with those side effects after people return to the ER 4 or 5 days after an injury...it's called digital disimpaction. Without getting too graphic, and oh...am I tempted to, digital refers to the fingers and disimpaction refers to the removal of stool (no not a stool) from someones ass. But the personal experience of a percocet constipated post op bowel movement was like trying to birth a calf out of my ass. I have empathy. So be warned. Drink lots of water if you are taking narcotics...and PUSH.
OK, spa boy story time. Working the front desk of a high end spa in a posh resort town is, um, let's just say it's not a career choice for anyone over 17. So to pass the time I try to figure out how all the clients have made their millions. Old money trustafarians are easy to spot...they treat me like I don't exist. As much as that pisses me off it doesn't bother me as much as those who I imagine are the CEO's of oil companies or managers of musical groups like Boyz-II-Men. Being ignored by them would be a blessing, but there seems to be a need for some of these people to let every one else around them know how important they are by acting rude. It's like the money is a self esteem band-aid and since it might be the only thing going for them it gets pushed in my face as a sign of superiority. I know this is might sound like sour grapes...but two things are true: 1) I'm a bit of a classist and don't really like the rich...and 2) I never generalize or stereotype people...and 3) my dark side is a bit jealous. But not really. Not when I think of the girl with the eyebrow emergency at the spa the other day. I realized then that tragedy can strike the rich just as hard as the rest of us and all that money can't protect us from true grief.

Manicures, pedicures, facials, hair 'blow-outs' (I'm still not clear on that one either), hair up-do's, make-overs, body wraps, mineral rubs, massages of all flavors, and regretfully, eye brow shaping. We do it all. Upscale with all the scents and candles and scented air infusers you'd expect in a posh spa. You know the smell I'm talking about. Candles burning with scintillating names like Mango-Tangerine or Citrus-Mellon. My favorite is Ginger-Pomegranate. The next time you are in the store go sniff a pomegranate...there is absolutely no aroma to a pomegranate. This annoying fruit might taste sweet/sour and vaguely like some kind of berry but there is no scent. But anyway, all these smells are designed to make you feel warm and luxurious and relaxed and ready for a wonderful spa day. Like a house full of the aroma of freshly baked cookies, you just feel good. All those feelings however were shattered the other day when we heard a scream and noticed a woman running for the bathroom. One of our esthiticians came out and said, "I only plucked out a few before I handed her the mirror." Then we all heard the sobs coming from the bathroom. Including the people in the sound proofed massage rooms. In any spa there are the multitude of "products". Some are for exfoliation, some for moisturizing...you know. We have a spray, like a spritz really, that is designed for relaxation. As soon as the sobs became audible there was a flurry of women running down the tastefully carpeted hallways and someone had thoughtfully grabbed the calming spritz. I wish I could have been in that bathroom to see the scene as they all tried to calm and soothe this woman's pain with their "spa voices" and spraying her in a cloud of calming mist. It didn't work. Ten minutes later a harried woman came in the front door, cell phone in hand, looking for her daughter. I just pointed to the back hall, "she's in the bathroom". I needn't have wasted my breath as the sobs were guiding her. Ten more minutes and a less harried dad came in also carrying a cell phone. The sobs continued...for 45 minutes. I entered the facial room where the damage had been done. And there on the table, like fresh evidence from a crime scene was the pair of tweezers and fewer than 10 eyebrow hairs. How much damage could have been done here I wondered. Forty five minutes and way too much sobbing later I found out. As she came sniffling to the front desk I gave her face a quick furtive glance...not wanting to draw attention to what I was sure was going to look like some disfiguring goiter. Her eyebrows looked absolutely normal. I mean NORMAL! Her mother told me, over the sniffling and nose blowing of the daughter, that "she is very sensitive about her eyebrows." "NO SHIT", I wanted to scream but gave her my sympathetic understanding nod reserved for those men who come into the ER with a foreign body stuck up their butt and say they have no idea how it got there.