Back in the spring, my older daughter came home and surprised me with a gift, a spa package at Elizabeth Arden. I was thrilled. Of course, it could have been a piece of gum and I would have been thrilled, tickled by the idea that she had thought of doing something nice for me for no apparent reason at all.
The extravagant spa certificate has sat for months on my dresser, still wrapped in its enticing little red box with the white ribbon. I'd promised my daughter I would set aside time one day to enjoy all the services at once, and not just squeeze them in piecemeal. We agreed that I could make substitutions, as long as I treated myself to the special pleasure of an uninterrupted day (or half day) at the spa.
The most enticing service in the package, at the time I received it, was the massage. I had recently injured my back, and was struggling each day to limit my Advil intake to one small bottle a day. A few months down the road though, my back is fine, and I decided to forego an hour of some stranger's hands all over my body (isn't that what dating is for?) and focus on my face.
And so it was, under terrifyingly bright lights, that my spa technician -- one of the nicest ladies on the planet -- stared at my clogged pores and my wrinkles and my waning elasticity and put together a creative combination of facial treatments that would start to reverse the aging process. She even tossed in some freebies, careful to make sure whatever she did would be covered by my gift certificate. The old me would have objected; the new me accepted everything she offered. I rationalized my greediness; I have, after all, been a good tipper for years.
She cleansed, she scrubbed, she massaged, she peeled. Then there was the mysterious microdermabrasion, during which she guided some bizarre electronic implement of torture over my face, assuring me it would help to stimulate and glue the cells of my cracking cheeks back together. A promise like that is nothing to sneeze at, so I gritted my teeth and endured the excruciating pain. A trip to the dentist was starting to look appealing.
She finished me off with a collagen mask (the room was dark and I was pinned to the table with a three hundred pound warmed blanket, so I couldn't see myself, but I'm pretty sure I looked like the guy from Phantom of the Opera), and a gratuitous dose of eye cream, which made my eyes feel irritated and swollen for the rest of the day. I was sent off with a jar of miracle cream which would continue to glue together the cells on my cracking cheeks (at thirty per cent off, who could resist) and stumbled home to admire my new youthful face in my bathroom mirror. Yipes! I was as shiny as a new penny.
Oh, but shiny sounds so negative. I've chosen to think of it more as a healthy glow. And, with my new elastic face, its fissures and fault lines closing up before my very eyes, I'm thinking I'm more than ready to get out there and date, find that super nice guy who will find me so irresistible that all he'll want to do is give me that massage I passed up. Talk about getting the most bang for your buck!
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