Half-Baked
Despite my trainer’s unexpected exit, I’ve forged ahead with the whole “fitness” thing. The comments about my shrinking waistline have been motivating, as well as BFD dragging my lazy butt off the couch (“I just want to take A NAP!!”).
After a particularly heavy dinner last night, someone who will remain nameless (BFD) decided that we should go work out.
“I’ll barf.”
“You’ll be fine. We’ll take it easy; we’ll just do legs tonight then sit in the hot tub for a while.”
You know, it’s funny how your head will filter out certain things. I totally missed the “do legs” part, choosing to focus on the “hot tub” part. Even so, going to the gym after ingesting a pound of red meat was not really high on my list of priorities, and I was, shall we say, a bit… uhhh…. whiny.
I made it through the short half-hour workout with a minimum amount of complaining, but my legs had the internal structure of Jell-o at that point, so I was more than ready for the hot tub. As I sank into the hot water, I realized I was facing the sauna and steam rooms.
“What’s the point?” I asked BFD. He said something about sweating out toxins, which I am a bit skeptical of but there must be some merit to it, since every fitness club I’ve been to has these rooms. Either that, or there’s a whole lot of suckers out there. I mean, Dr. Phil has a career, you know? After relaxing for a few moments, he motioned to the sauna.
“You want to go try it out?”
“Sure. Why not.”
The stifling heat hit me like a brick as I walked into the room of other sweaty bodies. I sat down on the cedar bench and squinted for a moment. The heat coming off the rocks reminded me of a pit of charcoal, and I wondered who the insane individual was that came up with this idea. Hey, let’s heat up some ROCKS and then BAKE OURSELVES. I tried to remain silent, but I kept having an image of Betty Crocker turning into a cannibal, and this was her grand plan for dinner.
“Holy crap, it’s hot.”
“Uh huh.”
(pause)
“I can’t breathe.”
“I would think you’d like it in here; you’re always cold.”
(pause)
“Seriously, this must be what barbeque feels like.”
“Do you want to try the steam room instead?”
“Yes please.”
The air outside the oven felt blissfully cool as I pulled a deep breath into my lungs. But the relief was short-lived as we entered the steam room. I wasn’t expecting the sudden rush of an overwhelming peppermint smell; apparently, someone at the spa was into aromatherapy. Lucky me.
I had a really bad experience many years ago with a certain peppermint liquor, and the smell immediately transports me back to that memory: but this practically WRAPPED itself around me and pulled me down to a place where I could not breathe. I realized quickly that it was slightly cooler the lower I slouched, so I sat on the lowest bench and tried to keep my head low. Of course, all of this was highly entertaining to my workout partner, who kept snickering at my obvious discomfort. Again, I tried to refrain from complaining, but after a few moments, I realized that the peppermint air had a peculiar aftertaste…
“UGH. It tastes like a sweaty peppermint in here.”
BFD laughed.
“No, seriously… you can’t taste it?” I stuck out my tongue and wrinkled my nose. “If you dipped a peppermint in sweat and then ate it, this is what it would taste like!”
Before he could answer, my eyes caught a glimpse of a thermometer hanging on the wall.
“Holy crap!! Is that right? 120 degrees?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Great. We go from baking to boiling.”
“Do you want to get out?”
“No, no. I’m good. We can stay a little bit longer.”
“Are you sure?”
“Uh huh.”
(pause)
“This is like New Orleans after Katrina hot.”
“Let’s go.”
“Oh, thank you.”