I’ve been in a half-fog the past two weeks. There’s a nasty cold going around that brings with it the gifts of sinus headache, sore throat, and uncontrollable sneezing. You’d almost think it were allergies if it weren’t for the general feeling of unwellness that goes along with it. I’d recovered, was feeling perky and back to my old self and then the kids started complaining of stuffy noses and sore throats and mine crept back. I thought once I fought off a cold, it was banished for good, but this one is special. Josh had the same thing — maybe this virus takes a hiatus, fools you into thinking you’re on the mend and then, “Bam! See ya sucka! You’re going down! Again.”
Josh and I went and got massages yesterday to try and get rid of some of the achiness I’ve been feeling. It sounds exotic, but the massage atmosphere at most places is very basic/spartan unless you go to a hotel spa and pay big bucks (we do not). We’d been to this place a few weeks ago for the first time and the selling point for our return visit was that the tables were made of plywood with a cutout for your face, padded by a U-shaped travel pillow (with padding of some sort on top of the wood, of course). It was much better than the previous place we tried that had futon mattresses on the floor and regular pillows. The worst place that I tried used inflatable pillows. It’s impossible to get comfortable during a massage when your head is cricked up and to the left or right and every time you turn to the opposite side (to relax the strain in your neck) it sounds squeaky and sticky. No thanks.
Our previous visit was over Josh’s Memorial Day holiday. Base personnel had the day off, but for the rest of the city and the kids’ school, it was business as usual. We went to the “spa,” which was mostly empty, except for the line of Thai ladies in matching uniforms. When we went back yesterday though, on a Friday afternoon, it was Saudi central. We walked in and the place was overrun with men. I was the only woman in there aside from the many young Thai women running to and fro, ushering clients from room to room. For a moment I wondered if we had made a huge mistake and this was one of those “happy ending” salons on the weekends, but we had an appointment so I stood off to the side and tried to make myself invisible while we waited. It turned out that the room for the “couples massage” was still occupied for another twenty minutes (I silently wondered if there was another woman who had braved this sea of men or if it was 2 men who opted for the convenience of the shared room), but we could be seen immediately if we split up.
Since I didn’t want to wait any longer than I had to in the front of the salon, I opted for separate rooms and waved goodbye to Josh as we were led away in opposite directions, down a narrow hallway, past countless cubbyholes to my “room.” On the bright side, because I was solo, it meant that I didn’t have to listen to our massage therapists chat to each other throughout the entire massage. The previous time my lady was chatty and the Josh’s was a giggler. She would whisper, “gong he wa-wa ni lo ti la” and Josh’s lady would giggle back, “tee hee hee hee hee.” It was like the episode of Seinfeld when Elaine gets a manicure and is convinced the ladies were laughing at her. I started fake-translating their conversations in my head to entertain myself. I’m pretty sure that the one was telling the other about one of the other ladies at the salon and her illicit Bahraini boyfriend (based on what I can pick up at the nail salon, that’s a pretty common occurrence).
Anyway, it was a great massage and an hour of silence, other than the building construction that was happening on the other side of the wall and the construction worker that had a hell of a cough. His gasping barks made my masseuse giggle a few times, but I was mostly lost in relaxing almost-sleep. When I was finally reunited with Josh on the other side, he was sipping tea along with the other men in the lounge. One guy was hobbling around and Josh said that group of guys were all getting waxed. His legs were still hairy, so I’m guessing he was hobbling with discomfort from some other area that was denuded? Josh said during his massage the guy in the room next to him was getting the wax treatment and was whimpering and whining about the pain. The rooms all have 3/4 walls so any conversation or noise carries right over the top. They started around the same time and the guy was still under the wax, so I can only imagine how much hair was being removed. The funniest part was listening to Josh describe the broken English conversation: “The burning! It burns!”
Not the most relaxing massages, but certainly entertaining in their own way. We’ll go back again sometime, but I’ll pass on the Friday afternoon Saudi man-parties next time.
