The Spa Break
It’s Boxing Day and we are driving to a spa hotel in a place in Hungary called Heviz. I’m finding something that Zsuzsa has just told me difficult to compute.
“The hotel has its own free dental service?” I ask with furrowed brow.
“Yes.” replies Zsuzsa, as though it’s the most normal thing in the world.
“That’s really weird.”
“Why is it weird?”
“Because it’s a hotel with a free dental service! I’ve heard of hotels that have free bikes for you to use, but never one that has free dentists for you to use.”
“Maybe they saw a gap in the market?”
“But that’s mental! What’s next? A double room with a free continental breakfast and a colonic irrigation?”
A few hours later and we have arrived at the hotel, and despite the dental insanity everything seems normal. In fact the place seems lovely! Zsuzsa, Mila and I are relaxing by the pool. Mila is beyond fascinated by the place. She is scanning the room with an expression of wide eyed wonder, but this isn’t surprising seeing as she has a similar expression when she rediscovers her feet every morning. Zsuzsa spots a sign that apparently says that there will be a Russian sauna session tomorrow.
“You should go honey.” she says.
“What’s a Russian sauna session?”
“I’m not sure. They probably put vodka on the coals or something.”
It's now tomorrow and I’m lined up outside a sauna waiting for the sauna instructor to arrive. People are starting to gather and I’m beginning to wonder why they are all wrapped in white cotton sheets. The sauna instructor arrives carrying an ice box and people begin to enter. I hand my ticket to the instructor.
“Nem szabad (not allowed).” says the instructor, pointing to my shorts.
It now dawns on me. Everyone around me, both men and women, are naked under their sheets. Some of the more brazen people are already actually dropping their sheets, revealing their unmentionables, and let me tell you, these are not pretty unmentionables. They have no right to be so brazen. I can only assume that they work in fairgrounds and have only ever seen themselves naked in a hall of mirrors. I hesitate. What should I do? But then I figure ‘when in Heviz’ and sheepishly attempt to remove my shorts under a sheet, almost falling on my face in the process.
Three minutes later and I’m in the sauna, having taken my seat on the second rung of benches. Fat, sweaty, hairy, naked Russians are all around me, as far as the eye can see. This is not how things looked in the brochure. A flabby, hairy man in his late fifties enters. He’s wearing a sheet, but it’s too high up, not leaving anything to the imagination. He scans the room for a space to plonk his naked, fuzzy arse. The only space is behind me so he begins clambering over bodies. He reaches me and lifts one leg over my shoulder, straddling me to get a foot hold on the rung above me. And then it happened.
Apparently this reads "Spend half an hour in a tiny room with naked, hairy, chubby Russians."
About eight years ago I was in a car crash on the M25. Thankfully nobody was injured, but it was a fairly scary moment. I vividly remember seeing a lorry approaching the side of our car via my peripheral vision. I remember time slowing down and my brain working overtime to assess the situation. I remember feeling strangely calm as I accepted that an impact was inevitable, but that we’d probably be alright. I also remember thinking that I needed to keep facing forward as that was the best option to avoid serious injury. Memories of this car crash came flooding back as I sat there in the sauna. From my peripheral vision I could see it coming my way. A saggy scrotum swinging like a pendulum. It was swinging towards the side of my face with surprising velocity. Time slowed down and I was both horrified and yet serene as I waited for the inevitable. I knew if I jerked my head too suddenly in another direction I could come to rest between an obese gent’s nether regions and I was also certain that I didn’t want to turn towards this atrocity and take this scrotal impact head on. And so I waited, motionless as the sweaty ball bag smacked in to the side of my precious face. SPLAT! And then I just sat there, stunned and horrified as the sauna session began. Vodka was poured on the coals. Russian music began blaring, a Russian flag was used to waft the heat around the room. The heat was excruciating and yet my mind was elsewhere. I was fantasising about dipping my face in to a vat of white spirits and then scrubbing my face clean off, but I had thirty minutes to endure beforehand.
Thirty minutes later and I bolt out of the sauna. I’m hotter than the sun. I throw my swimming trunks on and clamber in to the plunge pool. I cool down and then begin my ascent up the ladder, out of the ice water. I look up and then I see it. My ball bag aggressor, completely naked, climbing down the ladder towards me. BACKWARDS! I have now seen every millimetre of this man. I have seen true horror.
I move with pace and purpose, passed my wife, towards the shower.
“How was the sauna honey? Honey? What’s wrong? Honey? Honey?”
Boldog Új Évet (Happy New Year).
x
