Read Online I See You Made an Effort: Compliments, Indignities, and Survival Stories from the Edge of 50 by Annabelle Gurwitch - Free Book Online
Authors: Annabelle Gurwitch
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sky. I’ve been transported to the Australian outback and am peering up at the stars. After a sweaty interval, I exit past a tiled wall where crushed ice is flowing into a polished chrome pocket on the wall. An attendant appears and inquires whether I am experienced. Is she making a Jimi Hendrix reference? No, she means have I tried the Experience Shower. It would just be impolite to refuse. My entire kitchen could fit inside this shower. I push the first of three buttons in front of me. This one is labeled
Atlantic Squall
. Streams of water lash my back; the pressure varies and moves from side to side like I’m being tossed in the middle of the ocean. I startle and turn when I feel someone’s hand tapping me hard on the shoulder, but no one is there. It’s the Experience Shower’s manynozzles ratcheting up the pressure. I must be farther offshore now, as I’m drenched by torrents of hard rain. I begin to feel seasick. I saw
The Perfect Storm
. This might not end well! The lights in the shower area move from yellow to green to purple. Was the person who designed this on acid or in the employ of the CIA? It’s like the Experience Shower is trying to get information from me. I switch to Caribbean Rain. It’s a gentle sprinkle, falling softly, but it soon becomes chilly, so I select again and a slow swirl of warm Maui Mist envelopes me.
When I emerge fully Experienced, I check the full-length mirror to see if I’ve sustained any bruising, but I am intact. Pulling on my robe, I again think of that line—
The rich are different from you and me
—and then I remember the rest of the sentence—
and we will know them by their showers
. No, that can’t be right. I know that, but my brain got jangled during the monsoon and it
seems
true. In less than five minutes, I’ve been drenched with enough water for several large families to cook and bathe for a week. How, I wonder, will I ever go back to my state-mandated low-flow showerhead with its 2.5-gallon-per-minute limit? But I can’t stop to consider this now because there’s a path of fresh flowers and candles leading to the Tranquility Lounge and I need to recover after my time at sea.
The lounge has chaises with fake-fur throws and dim lighting and new-age music that makes you feel something is happening, something essential, important, and you’re not sure what, but it’s a journey and you’re on it. You’re setting off on the Silk Road. The music is stirring and I feel charged with purpose, but there’s nothing to accomplish except more pampering and there is abountiful array of nourishing snacks, so I have to eat a strawberry or two, or seven. I sip water infused with cucumber, also so soft. Soft, inside and out. Tomorrow, I will learn that at that very moment, in the harsh light of day, in a room buzzing with fluorescent lights, someone was yelling out questions and there was no guided meditation music, just charges of sexual misconduct being leveled against the serial sexting politician Anthony Weiner. But I am in a cocoon, and they just might have to arrest me to get me to leave. I close my eyes.
I know I can’t stay in the spa all evening. I do have a job to do, after all, so I head to the locker room to dress, but somehow I take a wrong turn and head deeper in the spa. An attendant greets me, hands me another orchid and asks if I’ve made an appointment yet for a treatment. No, I haven’t.
“Would you like an explanation of all the services we offer?”
I am curious, but always feel guilty in situations like this. * I don’t want him to waste his time and attention on someone who can’t afford to leave a gigantic tip or become a regular customer.
“You don’t have to do that,” I assure him. I want to whisper, “I’m one of you. I’m just working here tonight.”
But instead of refusing, I let him walk me to view the five-foot purple amethyst crystal positioned in front of a purple glass wall that has purple water gently cascading into a
Atlantic Squall
. Streams of water lash my back; the pressure varies and moves from side to side like I’m being tossed in the middle of the ocean. I startle and turn when I feel someone’s hand tapping me hard on the shoulder, but no one is there. It’s the Experience Shower’s manynozzles ratcheting up the pressure. I must be farther offshore now, as I’m drenched by torrents of hard rain. I begin to feel seasick. I saw
The Perfect Storm
. This might not end well! The lights in the shower area move from yellow to green to purple. Was the person who designed this on acid or in the employ of the CIA? It’s like the Experience Shower is trying to get information from me. I switch to Caribbean Rain. It’s a gentle sprinkle, falling softly, but it soon becomes chilly, so I select again and a slow swirl of warm Maui Mist envelopes me.
When I emerge fully Experienced, I check the full-length mirror to see if I’ve sustained any bruising, but I am intact. Pulling on my robe, I again think of that line—
The rich are different from you and me
—and then I remember the rest of the sentence—
and we will know them by their showers
. No, that can’t be right. I know that, but my brain got jangled during the monsoon and it
seems
true. In less than five minutes, I’ve been drenched with enough water for several large families to cook and bathe for a week. How, I wonder, will I ever go back to my state-mandated low-flow showerhead with its 2.5-gallon-per-minute limit? But I can’t stop to consider this now because there’s a path of fresh flowers and candles leading to the Tranquility Lounge and I need to recover after my time at sea.
The lounge has chaises with fake-fur throws and dim lighting and new-age music that makes you feel something is happening, something essential, important, and you’re not sure what, but it’s a journey and you’re on it. You’re setting off on the Silk Road. The music is stirring and I feel charged with purpose, but there’s nothing to accomplish except more pampering and there is abountiful array of nourishing snacks, so I have to eat a strawberry or two, or seven. I sip water infused with cucumber, also so soft. Soft, inside and out. Tomorrow, I will learn that at that very moment, in the harsh light of day, in a room buzzing with fluorescent lights, someone was yelling out questions and there was no guided meditation music, just charges of sexual misconduct being leveled against the serial sexting politician Anthony Weiner. But I am in a cocoon, and they just might have to arrest me to get me to leave. I close my eyes.
I know I can’t stay in the spa all evening. I do have a job to do, after all, so I head to the locker room to dress, but somehow I take a wrong turn and head deeper in the spa. An attendant greets me, hands me another orchid and asks if I’ve made an appointment yet for a treatment. No, I haven’t.
“Would you like an explanation of all the services we offer?”
I am curious, but always feel guilty in situations like this. * I don’t want him to waste his time and attention on someone who can’t afford to leave a gigantic tip or become a regular customer.
“You don’t have to do that,” I assure him. I want to whisper, “I’m one of you. I’m just working here tonight.”
But instead of refusing, I let him walk me to view the five-foot purple amethyst crystal positioned in front of a purple glass wall that has purple water gently cascading into a
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