Sunday, June 26, 2005

Leg Spa

Just as I was traversing the final slope into sleep last night, the phone rang. Slightly delirious in that Jorge Luis Borjes-bred middle ground between waking and sleeping, it seemed quite a strange and surreal phone call.
It was a friend of mine, slightly inebriated, just calling to say hi.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” I responded, as one does.

(This particular friend speaks excellent English, so I can speak with uninhibited fluency without having to slow my words down to snail-speak.)
We chatted about mundane things for a minute and then got to talking about our weekends. As one does.
And, this was when it turned all magical-realismy.

“So what did you do yesterday?” I asked.
“Oh, I went to a leg spa!”
“Mm. I see.”
“Yeah, they had many boiling legs, and I ate some.”

And the magical realism kicked in like the first wave of a good trip. Gabriel Garcia Marquez couldn't have painted a more vivid image in my head.

Suddenly I saw a luxurious spa/resort in the secluded Japanese countryside. It was beautiful, with heated, marble-bedded floors and high ceilings.
It was apparently quite a popular joint too,
because there were hundreds of vacationing families of legs there! Mama leg and baby leg soaked in the hot pools while grandpa leg sipped sake in the leg spa bar. And, for the first time, I felt what it must be like to be a leg on holiday!

Then,
The vision vanished like inhibitions on a Saturday night
And was replaced by the realization that my friend was just talking about a hot spring where you go to soak your feet and boil eggs.

What a rip-off!
Leg Spa my ass!

3 comments:

R. said...

:-)

Bertissimo said...

reminds me of that Gogol story 'the nose'

-c said...

In fact, I think they're considering an egg-tossing Olympic competition in which you have to wade to Hades and back and then slap a donkey on the tail... i would give it a try!