Our Honeymoon Part Two: Forget finger lickin’- my masseuse was testicle flickin!!!

 

If you have successfully devoured Part One of my Honeymoon Saga, you may now advance past Go and collect $200. If you haven’t, click here to catch up. Don’t worry, we’ll wait for you slowpoke! There is always the wild card third option of flying blind and not knowing how or why I ended up here, so whichever route you choose to take – here’s Part Two.

 

Part of the draw of going to The Body Holiday in St. Lucia is that it’s an amazing beach-front tropical paradise where your body is pampered with spa treatments every day. Their tag line actually is “Give us your body for a week and we’ll give you back your mind.” At first glance that might sound really appealing to a normal person, but in case you didn’t know: I’m not normal!!! I hate to be touched in any way shape or form and I gave my mind over to those internal voices and their fighting years ago. I know my body pretty well and its idea of a holiday is not being man-handled – it’s resting on the couch or reclining in an air-conditioned movie theatre.

 

After dinner one night and just before the bed broke the first time, we went to a fashion show where the staff members (they actually refer to the help as “Bodyguards”) model some of the clothes you can purchase in the gift shop. It was at that moment when I first saw an ebony goddess strutting down the runway in slow motion. She was clad in a white bikini smaller than my pocket square and working that runway like she owned it when I suddenly realized that despite the heat, the birds, or the outdoor dining – I love St. Lucia!

 

bodyguard-for honeymoon part two

 

As part of your body’s holiday, there is a spa treatment scheduled every day.  I didn’t want to go to the treatments, but my wife talked/forced me into it. I don’t like the idea of being oiled up and jostled about like a show pony, but it was a no-win battle. Also (and more importantly) as I was now a married man, anyone besides my wife rubbing, fondling, or karate chopping me was gonna start something that wouldn’t be finished. If I am not making myself crystal clear put it this way: Do you know what happens when you knead the bread dough and it starts to get hot? It starts to rise people!!!

 

kneading - for honeymoon part two

Do I even “Knead” to explain this one?

 

As I headed to my first treatment, I asked directions to the spa. The friendly male bodyguard (no, not Kevin Costner) gently directed me to “follow this path towards your Oasis.” What he neglected to mention in his cult-like directions was that the path to the spa was almost ninety steps up the side of a very steep cliff. His “path” was a winding steep staircase the likes of which I thought would never end. I made it up about twenty steps before I had to sit down to catch my breath. There were smokers and senior citizens – literally fucking seniors – passing me as I sat there like a lump. Did I mention the blistering heat and no shade on the path? As a general note for the resort: If you want a fat fuck like me to climb all those steps up a cliff in that heat and you better have a paramedic on standby!!! I thought I was gonna drop dead right there and then.

 

To let you in on how and when the spa treatments are assigned; when you arrive, they plan out an itinerary of spa selections for each day that you’re there. I tried to get them to give my wife two treatments a day instead of getting any for myself, but they wouldn’t do that and my wife convinced me to “try it you might like it.” I gave in – but once again my Immodium Spidey-senses were tingling. Also, I couldn’t help but be self-conscious after the therapist suggested that I might want to upgrade and get a Cellulite Flush. Obviously, I passed as there’s no way I’d ever get anything resembling a literal stick of dynamite for the sole purpose of “flushing me out!” I want to know who in their right mind would choose to cleanse the circulatory, lymphatic, and digestive systems and then walk down ninety steps. Hello? There would be a massive cleanup on aisle two for sure!

 

By the time I finally made it up that never-ending path, I was soaking wet and almost ready to die. As a point of reference, let me just tell you that Hannibal actually crossed the Alps with those elephants in less time than it took me to get up that path. I went into the locker room and looked at myself in the mirror and I was just disgusted. Forget being tired and out of shape, I looked like the Pillsbury Dough Boy in a Girl’s Gone Wild Video with that sweaty, slicked-up chest hair peeking out of my wet T-Shirt. That white rag that used to be my T-shirt was stuck to me like saran wrap around chop meat. I peeled it off me, threw it out, and then took the coldest shower I could.

 

The very top of the never-ending “Path”

 

When I got into the room that my massage was in, I was not looking forward to it but thought it might be OK. I was on the table and tried to explain to the male masseuse that I didn’t like to be touched and that I didn’t want a massage. He said to calm down and relax and before I knew it, he was rubbing my feet with nasty oil and smiling. At that moment, I knew exactly how date rapes start – because he wasn’t taking no for an answer and I wanted him to go slow because I was unsure. He told me to lie back and close my eyes and then released my feet. I was about to do just that when I saw these two big hands covered in oil moving towards my face which prompted me to scream “What are you doing?  You just touched my feet – don’t go near my face.” He was laughing and telling me to close my eyes and relax but that was enough for me. I jumped off that table and out of went to scrub that oil off my feet.

 

Afterwards, I didn’t have to give my wife the play by play to tell her what happened because she was actually in the room next to mine and she said that I ruined her massage. She couldn’t concentrate with me complaining the whole time and because I kept saying “What are you doing? I don’t like this. Why is that oil warm? Where is your hand?” she was actually happy that I gave up and left so that she could enjoy what was left of her massage. She also rescheduled her treatments for different times than me so I wouldn’t be anywhere near her as she said she “wanted to relax” (which I took to mean pretend she didn’t know me.)
I wasn’t going to go to the next treatment (or any others after that) at all, but my wife made me promise that I would give just one more treatment a fair try and she advised me to “not be myself” and try to enjoy it. I caved in and went into the treatment room where I met up with someone facing the wall with her back towards me telling me to get undressed and under the sheet on the bed. Apparently, she wasn’t even attempting small talk and who was she kidding about a sheet – it was more like a short towel. I obviously didn’t want any part of it until I realized who the woman saying it was: It was the ebony goddess from the fashion show! I dropped those shorts in an instant and thought I actually might enjoy this treatment after all.

 

My masseuse right before she attempted testicular manslaughter!

 

As she started to massage me, she was explaining the treatment to me, but I wasn’t listening because I was distracted by how much she moved around. She was back and forth from one side of the table to the other like she was playing ping pong, yet she didn’t miss a spot on me. She was gingerly moving the sheet/towel as she massaged and I really did try to just relax. She was all over me like a rash and I was actually really starting to enjoy the massage. She was firm and then gentle, firm and then gentle. That ended abruptly when she told me to turn over and get onto my back. I pretended that I hadn’t heard her and figured that if I ignored her, she would let me stay the way I was yet she didn’t. I actually COULDN’T turn over and get onto my back because I was REALLY, REALLY, REALLY enjoying the massage if you know what I mean…If you don’t know what I mean, see the comment below about kneading the bread.

She then got a little louder; “You turn over now.”

“I’m OK like this, thanks anyway…” I offered back weakly as I tried to jostle myself and get the sheet/towel to try and cover me again so it wasn’t as obvious what was really going on….
“I said turn over” she said sternly.
“And I said No – No means No!” I shot back at her even more sternly – hoping upon hope that she would just take the hint and leave me alone – but then the unthinkable happened!
She lifted the sheet off me and said “Turn Over – Now!” I jumped to turn over, lost the sheet/towel off the side of the table onto the floor when I tried to recover myself with it and just gave up all hope of modesty or self respect at that point. Her lifting the sheet is not even the unthinkable part I was referring to. As I lied back down and tried to reposition myself and tried to get the sheet/towel back over me, she flicked my testicle! She fucking flicked my testicle!

The play-by-play re-enactment!

 

Obviously I was shocked and scared at the same time (talk about a vulnerable position) and then she took the sheet/towel and tried to recover me which didn’t matter so much anymore at that point because I had taken a nosedive faster than Michael Phelps, if you know what I mean. I was in shock and pain from the flicking assault that I didn’t even notice what she was doing next until I felt this gritty mud being spread all over me as if it were crunchy peanut butter and I were the slice of bread. I tried to complain/ask questions, but she gave me a nasty glare and held up a finger that basically meant one more word and the other testicle gets it too! Needless to say, I shut right up.

 

I tried to remain calm yet look around for the nearest exit to plot my escape until she started to wrap what looked and felt like saran wrap around me. It was almost like I was the sausage and she was putting the clear coating around me. My bruised ego (and bruised testicle) got the best of me and I jumped up to get dressed and get out of there. No one was wrapping me in saran wrap and that crazy shit no matter how hot she was. She tried to get me to lie back down, but I had enough so I put on my shorts and made a run for it. Another treatment ends in disaster…needless to say my wife said it served me right for her flicking my testicle. I know sometimes I am a psycho and bring these things on myself – but in no way did I instigate a testicle attack! That’s literally hitting below the belt!

 

I was totally done with the treatments at that point, not to mention those god damn steps…The next day my wife forced me (literally) to go to my facial. “What could happen? It’s a facial…” she said.  I got into the room and this tiny little peanut that spoke very little English said “OK, you take off now” and pointed at my shorts. I thought she must be confused and said “Just the shirt – It’s a facial right? No need to be naked…” I certainly had no intention of getting naked again , especially after yesterday’s testicular attack. You got me once, but I’m not a fool.

 

She stood up and said sternly “OFF!” and pointed at my shorts, which scared me a little so I did as I was told. This nice little peanut suddenly turned into a little bit of a bitch. Then she proceeded to hand me a “modesty coverup” which was a towel the size of a large index card, but I was just happy to have any coverage at all. As I was lying there on my back, she took slices of some sort of fruit and put them over my eyes. I was concerned being naked again and now having my vision obscured, but I really was trying. I didn’t make it ten seconds like that before she stared rubbing some sort of shit on my face. I’m not sure what it was and hope it wasn’t actually shit, but since my line of view was covered I can’t be positive.

 

This would have been less ridiculous than my facial.

 

She started rubbing that stuff on my face and she was leaning down over my head when all of a sudden I can only assume something got caught in her throat because she started coughing uncontrollably. RIGHT IN MY FACE! I got hit with exactly two bits of phlegm before I started screaming and jumped up. I was flailing around naked looking to get the towel to wipe my face off and ran towards the door when she tried to speak through the coughing…”You…(cough cough)…have a …(cough cough)…sit back down…(cough cough)” I started to open the door to make a run for the shower to scrub my face and get the shit and the phlegm off of it, when I realized that I was still naked as she was vomiting into the little sink in the corner. I found my shorts on the floor and put them on and ran to the showers. As if that wasn’t bad enough, don’t you know that my wife’s first response to me telling her about this latest assault was “Is she OK?” I looked at her like she was crazy and said “What? That’s not the point – who cares? I didn’t even check – she could be dead for all I care, she almost threw up on my fucking face and I was naked again. There’s something wrong with this place!”

 

Every treatment was originally scheduled to be an hour, but I didn’t even make it through a third of that for any one of the treatments. The facial must be a record, because I wasn’t even there for all of four minutes. My wife loved every minute of every one of her treatments and we actually did have an amazing Honeymoon in spite of me and my antics. The lesson here is that if you know that something isn’t right – stick to it or your gonna write a check that your testicle can’t cash!


Just for the Holiday Season: My Famous Baby Jesus Story

I am not one to start with a disclaimer, but this post might need one. Some people get really crazy about Religion and what should and shouldn’t be done with iconic religious figures, so let me say right now that if you are the type that gets easily offended by the inappropriate misuse of a religious figurine by an absolute moron – STOP READING THIS NOW! Otherwise enjoy and don’t say that I didn’t warn you…

 

As you get together this week and surrounded yourself with those animals that you call Dad or Mom or maybe they’re your brother, sister, or even the housekeeper serving dinner  –  remember the spirit of the Holiday Season and what it was intended to be about: The Baby Jesus! I’m not kidding – I’d like to share a little something that happened to me the year that a little plastic baby named Jesus came into my life.

I was on winter recess from college and the insurance claims company where my sister Marlene worked needed temporary help for the holidays. I wasn’t really the working type but I figured a few extra bucks couldn’t hurt, so I signed on for a few weeks.

The office was in the basement of the owner’s house and besides him and I, there were only women working in the office. They were all crazy, but of particular note was the Office Manager, Kim. She was nuts and I do say that a lot about people, but with her it was actually true. She was dating my brother Angelo and if there was ever a person that should have been force-medicated because she was oh so crazy – it was Kim. She was a nice girl and all and no offense to my brother, but there was something really wrong with the water in that well if you know what I mean. Something was off and this is coming from a person that is a little “off.” If I know one thing for sure when I see it – it’s another crazy person and that bitch made me seem like a calm breeze. More about her later.

The office was about twenty minutes away from our house and Marlene and I had just left work and were heading home. We were driving along talking about nonsense as usual when I looked out the window and saw it. It was dark out and partially concealed, but I could see clear as day. They don’t call me Eagle Eye for nothing. (OK, no one actually calls me Eagle Eye, but what a cool nickname that would be – right?) I started screaming “Stop the car – Stop the car right now!!!” and Marlene swerved to the right, cut someone off and slammed on her brakes landing her hooptie halfway up the curb. I bolted out and ran down the sidewalk and as quick as a bunny I was back in the car cradling two plastic Baby Jesus figurines from a lawn manger. They were both life-size and in perfect condition, but one was painted to look like a real baby and the other was completely white – like a poor little albino Baby Jesus. I just knew in my soul that he wasn’t painted to remind me of the hardships and sacrifices in life and to remind me to give back and think of others…Or maybe the factory it came from ran out of flesh colored paint, which is far more likely.

It was January and Christmas was over, but someone had disgracefully thrown the Baby Jesus into the trash pile. Is it Baby Jesuses? Or is it like “The Gift of the Magi” and they’re called the Baby Jesi if there are more than one? Either way – You don’t do that! Just like with the disposal of a damaged American Flag, there is a certain protocol for the disposal of religious figurines. I am not sure exactly what that protocol is and Father John has been ignoring my calls since my Stigmata scare turned out to be a false alarm (OK, maybe I jumped the gun a little and got a little nervous…but it sure seemed like Stigmata to me) a few months ago but I knew that it wasn’t supposed to be in a heap of garbage and my Catholic guilt couldn’t let the Baby Jesus go out like that.

I was trying to buckle the Baby Jesus and his albino twin into their seatbelts in the back (Don’t roll your eyes, obviously, I didn’t know I would be picking up two babies or we would have brought car seats – sometimes life throws a curveball at you and you gotta duck) when Marlene went all kinds of crazy on me.

“Are you kidding? You almost got us into an accident to pick those fucking plastic dolls out of someone’s garbage – what’s wrong with you?”

“Lower your voice right now! They can hear every word your saying and they’ve been through a lot! I whispered back at her harshly.”

“What are you even going to do with those? Why did you take them out of the garbage Fred Sanford?”

Me in the Red Sweatshirt and Marlene in the Robe

“I guess that makes you Lamont then…DUNT DUNT DUNNIT…” and with that we were laughing and heading home. If you’re reading this and don’t know the theme song to Sanford & Son call your mother right now and tell her that I said that you were raised by animals! Then go to Best Buy immediately and get the Season DVD sets because that show is hysterical!

In actuality, I think Marlene was more annoyed at herself than me for stopping the car. Usually, her ninja-like reflexes kick in when she stops the car short and this time they just didn’t. In case I failed to mention this before, Marlene thinks she’s Curtis Sliwa in the Long Island Chapter of the Guardian Angels.

All she needs is a red beret and Marlene is can be an official Guardian Angel!

She’s got a baseball bat in her trunk at all times just in case something happens; all she needs is a red beret. True as I am typing here, one night she and I saw a kid getting jumped on the street by four other guys. She stopped her car in the middle of the road, popped the trunk, got her baseball bat out of it and went running down the sidewalk faster than TJ Hooker after a suspect.  As she was out there, I did what any sensible person would do – I screamed like a little girl and then dove into the driver’s seat, rolled up all the windows, locked the doors and slipped that mother into drive to get the hell out of there. I was carrying on like someone was chasing me in a Scream mask and figured it was every man for him or herself. Sister or no sister – out there on the streets – you’re on your own! Unbelievable as that was, she chased four guys away and when she helped the guy that got jumped up off the ground – he actually started yelling at her that he could have taken them. That’s when Florence Nightingale herself told him she hoped they came back and kicked the shit out of him again – she’s all heart that one.

So as we drove towards home with the babies safely tucked into the back seat – there was almost an explosion in the car. Like the stick of dynamite that went off on that cold Thanksgiving night when I drank half a gallon of apple juice – Marlene was in gastric distress. Believe it or not – this time there was severe stomach pains, sweating, cramps and a 98.6% chance of someone shitting their pants in the car and it wasn’t me! That’s what we call dramatic irony folks!

All of a sudden, Marlene shot across the highway and made a break for it down a side street. Kim, the crazy Office Manager that my brother Angelo was dating, lived close to where we were stuck in traffic so she headed that way. Kim lived in a basement apartment on a very busy street and as we pulled up in front of it, Marlene just slammed on the brakes and ran towards Kim’s door. This wouldn’t have been a big deal except for the fact that she almost got hit by at least two passing cars as she got out because she stopped short in the middle of the street. The car in back of us almost rammed us along with the cars screeching to a halt and lining up in back of his car. I got out of the car and tried to explain to the driver holding his horn down and cursing at me that she was having bad stomach pains and then just as I got to his window and tried to apologize, he leaned out and started screaming “Move that fucking car right now you Asshole!” Well, excuse me for trying to let you know what happened sir! I finally got the car out of the street and as I parked – it came to me like a vision: I knew exactly why the Baby Jesus had been brought into my life that cold dark night…

Do not ask me what possessed me over those next few moments, but I can still see it playing out in my mind’s eye in slow motion. When I got out of the car, I unbuckled the painted Baby Jesus, took off my jacket and wrapped it around him and I went running off into the night like a flash of lighting.

By some Christmas miracle, Marlene actually made it into Kim’s bathroom seconds before shitting her pants. I guess abandoning the car in traffic was a good strategy because she got there right in the nick of time. She ran in and went straight into Kim’s bathroom leaving the front door half open. Kim was on the telephone with my brother Angelo making plans to meet up later that night as Marlene bypassed any form of small talk.

Like a SWAT team busting up a meth lab, I kicked that half-opened door and came crashing through. I was cradling the wrapped-up Baby Jesus and hunched over so that you couldn’t really tell what I was holding as I burst into the room. I started screaming at the top of my lungs “KIM, KIM, – OH MY GOD KIM– THERE’S A DEAD BABY ON THE FRONT LAWN! THERE’S A DEAD BABY – CALL 911 – THERE’S A DEAD BABYYYYYYYYYY!!!” and with that, I thrust the Baby Jesus right up into her face as I was screaming.

The look of surprise, fear and confusion on her face was such that it will forever be embedded in my memory like a tattoo. As I went in screaming at the top of my lungs, it was loud; possibly a little louder than I should have screamed, as I think about it in hindsight. Kim was normally a very nervous person and a little on edge, but screaming frightened her… As I went rushing in like I was on fire, she threw the cordless phone (with Angelo still on the line) and immediately started screaming and freaking out, I mean FREAKING THE FUCK OUT! She was running around in circles crying and screaming and throwing her arms around. When I pushed it all up in her grill and she came face-to-face with the frightened Baby Jesus, she actually swung at it to get it away from her as she threw herself to the floor and collapsed into a heap. It might not have been as bad if immediately after she hit the ground, the Baby Jesus landed on top of her and then rolled off and settled right next to her on the ground staring up into her hysterical crying face.

It was so low as she talked that it was like a little squeak in between her wheezing at first…”ge… ge… ge”  “get” ”get out” “GET OUT” “GET THE FUCK OUT!!!!” as she tried to crawl towards the telephone that my brother was screaming through “WHO THE FUCK IS IN THE HOUSE…WHAT HAPPENED?…WHAT’S GOING ON?…I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU IF YOU TOUCH HER!…WHO’S THERE?” (He said later he thought she had been assaulted or attacked for sure with the way she was screaming and it happened so fast that he didn’t know if he should get into the car and head over or stay on the line.)

I would like to tell you that I was a mature person and sense finally came over me during her outbreaks and then subsequent breakdown immediately following my entrance, but alas that isn’t me…As she was alternately screaming, crying, and crawling towards the phone to try and recount to Angelo what had just occurred…I was crying laughing and on the floor trying not to pee my pants. I guess in hindsight I can see how she might not have thought it was funny, but in the moment – I really thought she might laugh at the absurdity of it all. Not the case.

As she tried to talk into the receiver it was a mess…”The…Baby…The Baby…Dead Baby…the Baby Jesus is in my house…” of course it made me laugh even harder and Angelo was trying to decipher what the hell she was talking about. She was then up on her feet screaming at me to get out again and calling me every curse in the book, heavy breathing/gasping for air, and still crying while my brother started screaming again “IS SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE?…WHO’S THERE?…WHAT BABY? TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!” as she threw me out the door. If she could have mustered the strength – she might have punched me in the face.

As I tried to stop laughing in her driveway and wipe the tears from my eyes, I realized that my jacket was still either wrapped around the Baby Jesus or on the floor where he and Kim hit the ground – and the car keys were tucked in the pocket of the jacket. There was absolutely no way that I could go back into that house without getting a serious beating (maybe deservedly so, I’ll give her that) so I sat out on the hood of the car waiting for Marlene.

Marlene came out of the bathroom and found Kim slumped in a pile on the living room floor crying into the phone and still not being able to explain fully what had happened to Angelo. She saw the Baby Jesus staring up at her from the living room floor and realized that the screaming and banging that she heard earlier was from me. She didn’t need to ask, but could pretty much piece together the events of the last few minutes in her mind and just walked out the door.

She came out to find me shivering from the cold but still laughing and then she got my jacket and we got back into the car. “Hey, do you think she’s going to give me back the Baby Jesus?” I asked trying to be serious and she just looked at me. “I can’t even right now…What the fuck is wrong with you?” she said and then we just busted out laughing…

As funny as Kim never found the incident and probably still doesn’t all these years later – Angelo tried not to laugh but he never heard the end of it from her. Needless to say, she was afraid to be alone there and he had to sleep over to calm her down because she was crying hysterically for hours.

The following Monday, she wouldn’t talk to me at work (OK, so maybe she had a right to be mad – I’ll give her that) and so I told her that I would “make it up to her” and go out to start her car and put the heat on for her as we were all getting ready to leave for the day. I went out and then came back to get Marlene. We got into our car, which wasn’t running and the windows were all rolled down. As I held my finger to my lips and told her not to say a word – I counted to about five before we heard Kim screaming at the top of her lungs out into the dark of night: “OH MY GOD – THE BABY JESUS IS IN MY CAR…WAAAAHHHH!!!” She started crying again and we got the hell out of there because I knew she would beat the shit out of me this time. As funny as she didn’t find it the first time, me putting the albino Baby Jesus in her car in a dark parking lot which scared her for a second time was worse. We didn’t even make it into the front door of our house before she had called my brother hysterical crying about the Baby Jesus again. He looked at me and Marlene and said “Enough with the Baby Jesus – How many of them do you even have?” and then he busted out laughing realizing how silly it sounded out loud…

I guess since time has passed I realize that it probably wasn’t something to joke about and it might have come across as mean…but it really was funny. She collapsed quicker than a Jenga game and I have never heard someone cry like that before or since. For the record, she never did give either Baby Jesus back to me.

I realize this might not be the Baby Jesus story you tell while sitting around your Christmas tree, but not a Christmas goes by that I don’t think about it and repeat around mine. I’m pretty sure not a Christmas goes by that Kim doesn’t think about it either…I imagine that if things had worked out between Angelo and Kim I might have grown to feel bad about it or been made to stop repeating this story, but like I said – she was crazy and they broke up – so here you go!

Happy Holidays to you and to all of the people in your life that would scare the shit out of you with a plastic Baby Jesus.