Hot Stone Madness

Every now and again I write a blog that some kind and funny person reads and then regales me with a far funnier and better story than I ever could hope to write.

I have an example.  It concerns a friend, who I will call Penelope, because that is absolutely not her name.  And I definitely don’t have any friends called Penelope, so nobody can be accused in the wrong.

Penelope came up to me the other day, after reading last week’s blog “What a Spa” and asked me about the pampering treatments I had last weekend.

I told her how great it had been, and how much I’d enjoyed it. We had the usual chat about the massage, whether it was like a little feather tickling my back, or more like being molested by a sumo wrestler. 

I prefer the sumo wrestler option, when it actually hurts, and told her so.  Happily, that’s what I got last weekend. 

“At least you didn’t have a hot stone massage” she told me.  “They’re a complete waste of time.”

“Do you think so?  I actually really like a hot stone massage.”

“Fair enough” said Penelope.  “But they’re sort of false advertising, aren’t they?”

“Why do you say that?  They promise hot stones, and you get hot stones.”

There was a short silence.  I got the feeling that Penelope had something else to say, but wasn’t saying it.  I waited it out.  Eventually she cracked.

“When you had your hot stone massage, how exactly did it work?”

I told her my tale, of warm towels with hot stones on top, and of all that followed.

“I knew it.  I knew I was being scammed, but I felt sorry for her.”

I waited.  And waited. This time I cracked.

“What happened at your massage?”

“All right.  Now don’t laugh.”

Penelope proceeded to tell me what had happened when she paid and turned up for a hot stone massage.

Apparently, her massage was part of a pampering weekend in the West.  The appointment was for the Sunday morning.

The first thing that went wrong was that the beautician turned up a few minutes after Penelope, so she was waiting outside in the cold.

The second thing was that my dear friend could see from a great distance that the beautician was hungover.  Possibly even still drunk.  As she approached Penelope, she was almost staggering.  And quite green in the face.

While Penelope was changing into her robe, and getting ready in general, she could hear some funny noises outside.  Hoping it wasn’t the beautician puking, she lay down and prepared herself.

“Now” said the woman, coming into the room at last.  “Have you ever had a hot stone massage before?”

“No” said Penelope.

“Great”.
The woman sounded livelier now than she had, so Penelope lay back to enjoy the luxury.

“I’ll just get your stone”

Stone?  Just one stone?  That seemed weird.  She must be just going to move it around or something.

The woman left the room and came back, carrying, as promised, a smooth oval stone.  It fit easily between her hands.  The woman rubbed the stone vigorously, said “there we go”, put the stone down again, and gave Penelope a perfectly normal massage.

That was it.  The end of her story.

I couldn’t believe my ears.

“Are you messing?” I asked “Sure you couldn’t have thought that was right.”

“I didn’t” she said miserably.  “I felt sorry for her, being so hungover.  And I was nearly as bad myself.  I might get a proper hot stone massage some day, just to see what they’re like.”