A friend of mine turned 30 years old last week and wanted to have her birthday party at a Korean spa.
I have never considered a spa to be on option for someone like myself. I figured I would just come up with some reason not to go…anything would do…but almost all our other friends had the same idea and beat me to it. It quickly became apparent that unless I wanted my friend to be all by herself for her thirtieth birthday, I was going to be at the spa.
I brow beat another friend of ours into going and when we arrived we were ushered to the all male changing area. There we saw the husband of the birthday girl. He had already been there for a while, we could tell by his laid back attitude. We were still covered with the stress of the city and he looked as calm and peaceful as Buddha himself.
“Guys- we have to get in the baths,” he informed us, “they’re amazing.” I walked to where they were and saw a sign on the door: Nudity Required. Before my friend and I had a chance to fold up our newspapers, the husband had his penis flapping in the breeze. I guess we’re getting naked. Game on.
As we walked down the hall to our lockers, we saw that they were side by side. And while we had accepted the fact that we were going to be fully exposed to one another, the initial shock if it, side by side, was a little too much to handle.
“You go first.” I graciously offered. “I’ll use the restroom and be back in a minute.”
One minute later, my friend was proudly strutting his stuff on the way to the bath.
My turn.
I hung up my coat. Took off my shirt, then my pants, then my boxers. I was naked as the day I was born, ready to head to the bath.
That was when two, naked, eleven year old Korean boys came running at me, stopping at the locker right next to mine. It was just them and me in the alley of lockers. Naked spa day had just taken a turn for the creepy.
Their father turned the corner and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then it dawned upon me that I was probably the first person in the world to be alone with two naked boys and be relieved that their father showed up. I quickly nodded to them and made a beeline for other adults.
I did not have my glasses on in the bath area, and my blindness allowed my mind a much need layer of anonymity. They had hot tubs and whirlpools, and saunas. I love saunas. I spent a good deal of time sweating away the toxins of my urban existence. After patrons left the sauna, they were required to shower, and the one I got under sprayed out icy cold water.
As I saw my penis shrink into my body, I quickly hopped into the first warm pool I saw. Ahhhh. I sat in the middle, sprawled out, all by myself when my friend walked by and said, Davey, you’re in the kids pool. I squinted at the at the writting and sure enough, Kids Pool, in tiny letters. I realized I hadn’t been sprawled out, I had been sitting there lurking. And that most importantly, I was not a spa person after all.
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