The Wannabe-Type-B Personality Gets a Facial

[A friend who has three children has just started a new job teaching at a nearby high school. She calls Type A Thursday night, sounding as though she must be somnambulant, but she can’t be. She’s making too much sense as she explains how exhausted she is and wonders if taking this job was such a good idea. Type A immediately decides the friend needs to do something relaxing, something away from the family, something just for herself. This is how Type A ends up at a day spa at 9:15 on a Saturday morning, sitting next to her friend and completing an information form, so she can get a facial.

Type A is looking at all the information about full-body massage and wishing they’d decided to do that, even though it would have meant taking out a second mortgage on the house. She’s forgotten that she’s the most ticklish person on the planet and that the four times in her life she’s had a full-body massage, she’s spent a good deal of it worrying that the massage therapist was going to hit a particularly ticklish spot. Not exactly relaxing. Just then, Marie, the massage therapist, arrives to lead Type A into the room where she’ll be spending the next hour. Marie leaves, so Type A can disrobe “from the waist up” and put on a little gown.]

Waist up? She said only from the waist up, right? This gown is too loose. It’s going to fall off. Where did she say to put my clothes? Oh, on the hook behind the door. [Hangs shirt and bra on hook.] Oh wait, there’s a hanger. Should I use the hanger? Oh God, I have to go to the bathroom. I knew I shouldn’t have had that coffee. Should I tell her I need to go? I don’t want to walk out there wearing this gown. People might see me, and it might fall off, it’s so big. But how am I going to relax if I don’t go to the bathroom. Why didn’t I go before I got undressed?

[Type A finally makes the decision to ask where the bathroom is and clutches the top of the gown as she scurries down the hall and back, where Marie is waiting for her. She lifts the covers of the bed and tells Type A to get in.]

Am I doing this right? I’m supposed to just climb into the bed like it’s any other bed, right? I guess this is right. Are the sheets heated? No. Too bad. If I ran a spa, I’d have heated beds.

[Marie brings over the paraffin dip for Type A’s hands. Type A knows she loves this, as paraffin dips were part of the physical therapy she had when she broke her wrist years ago.]

Okay, what am I supposed to do with this hand that’s been dipped while I’m dipping the other one? Do I hold it up like this? Will it drip on the bedcovers? This isn’t very comfortable, but if I lower it down, I might accidentally get too close to the blanket, and it might stick. I wouldn’t want to be the person who has to wash the bedcovers in this place. I bet they get everything on them: paraffin, face wash, greasy moisturizer, not to mention the people who lie in them. Don't think about that.

[Marie wraps Type A’s hands in plastic, and finally, she gets to comfortably put them under the covers. Then she asks Type A what sort of skin regimen she has.]

Should I tell her I really do nothing? I know I should, but who the hell has time for all those cleansers and astringents? Uh-oh, she’s going to want to sell me stuff like masks and little tubs of eye cream that cost $30 for 2 oz. I am not going to be suckered into buying them. I need to go home and see what I’ve already got that I never use. I should start using it. I need to clean out the bathroom cabinets. Maybe I’ll do that this afternoon.

[Type A admits that she just wipes her face every evening with a baby wipe and lathers on whatever moisturizer was on sale at K-Mart last time she went. If she were really honest, she’d admit she doesn’t even do this much a good deal of the time. Marie tells her that she’s “very, very young” right now, and that this may be working, but it won’t work forever, and that as she gets older, she’s really going to need a good regimen.]

She said I was very, very young. I’m not. Did she look at my information form to get my age? Is she 70, or something, and thinks 42 is young? Or is it my skin? Does my skin look like the skin of someone who’s really, really young? I should ask her. No, I don’t want to sound like I’m questioning her. But if it’s my skin, and she’s supposed to be an expert, those baby wipes and that cheap moisturizer must be working.

[Marie informs Type A that she has a lot of blackheads. She explains that exfoliating is really, really important, while exfoliating Type A’s face with a scrub that smells delicious. She massages Type A’s face and neck for way too brief a period, covers her face with a warm, moist towel and says she’ll be back in five minutes.]

She’s right. I really should exfoliate. I wonder how much that great-smelling stuff costs. I wonder if I can just buy it and not buy anything else. But that article I read a while back said exfoliating wasn't so good for those with very dry skin. Where did I read that? Wonder if I can look it up on line. Didn’t she say five minutes? This has got to be longer than five minutes. Where is she?

[What seems like it’s surely been a half hour later, Marie returns, only to leave shortly thereafter, having applied a mask that has to be on for fifteen minutes.]

Fifteen minutes? This is taking forever. I wish they’d let us read in here. I wonder what she’s doing. Does she have another client? Does she just go off and drink some tea somewhere? I bet she gets to go read. This is boring. What can I do? Maybe I should do some Kugel exercises. No, this is supposed to be relaxing. I should try to meditate. Breathe deeply. I wonder if my breaths are deep enough. I really ought to learn to meditate properly. I wonder what happened to that meditation CD I got Bob for Valentine’s Day. It would be nice if I could learn to take far fewer breaths per hour. Is that woman ever coming back?

[Hours later, Marie comes back to finish up the massage.]

Why can’t the massage part be as long as the waiting for the mask part? I wish she’d lingered a little more over the shoulders. God, my hair is going to be a mess after this. My bangs are going to stick up everywhere, and I’m sure she’s gotten lotion in it. I hope no one notices at the restaurant while we’re eating brunch. I wish I could go home and shower before then.

[Once Marie proclaims she’s done and Type A gets up to dress and looks at her watch, she’s amazed to find this was exactly one hour. She goes out to sip some yummy African nectar tea with her friend and talk about how relaxed they are. She's not lying. She's relaxed, because she and her friend have both agreed they won't buy any "product," and for once in her life, she won't be playing the sucker.]