Travel Missteps: You hold a lot of stress in your Butt

My Miami work trip, wasn’t that great. It was hot, it was stressful, and I had the worst string of bad luck I’ve ever had. On my two days off it didn’t get any better. On the first day, my Uber was stolen. The second day didn’t turn out much better. And the bad luck started the night before. I had no plans for my last day. I really hoped to go to a spa…a Canyon Ranch Spa. I had been to one in Las Vegas and it was heaven. After my week in Miami, I needed pampering.

But when I called, I was 20 minutes too late to reach the spa as they had closed. I was advised to call back early the next morning to see if they could fit me in. I then called the front desk of my hotel, and asked for late checkout. “1 PM” the man answered, and I agreed.

Now the hotel was actually quite lovely. It was a boutique hotel in South Beach called The Redbury. It was modern and retro at the same time. I had a lovely kingsized bed that felt perfect. The decor was pretty, and they had a curated “Vinyl Bar” of records to fit the theme of the hotel. I was grooving on the record player late into the night. I even tweeted out “@TheRedburySB I just checked in. My room is amazing. Don’t want to leave tomorrow. Darn such a short trip.”

The next morning I got up and called the spa. They were completely booked. I actually just wanted to use their amazing facilities, but alas they would not let you unless you had a spa service. I called around to a few others…and still no luck. No one could get me in. Waiting to the last minute (instead of my usual heavy planning) wasn’t working in my favor.

So instead I decided to head to the beach. I decided I’d go there for 2 hours, and then come back to the hotel to shower and pack. After spending 2 hours blissfully floating on the water, I headed back to the hotel. When I arrived, I found a lot of messages on my phone. Then the hotel phone rang. It was the front desk, reminding me checkout was an hour prior and asked if I was leaving today. (Guess they saw my tweet saying I didn’t want to leave!) “But I have late checkout. I called last night!” Well…it wasn’t noted. I explained I needed an hour, to the time the person told me last night, and hung up. I then barricaded the door and took the quickest shower in my life. The problem was…I had gone shopping the day before…and every single thing I owned was laid out, nothing packed. So I furiously packed as quick as I could, and made it out of the room with 10 minutes to spare, (as noted by the peeved cleaning crew waiting outside of my door.)

So, kicked out of my hotel, and with no plans, I started to walk in the hot Miami heat. I quickly couldn’t stand it, and was drinking bottle and bottle of water. I ended up going into every store I saw…just to have a few moments of respite from the heat. As I wandered I found what I thought was a unique Italian restaurant among all the other “same old” places I had passed. So I stopped and had good home-cooking style bolognese. (I later pasted 50 other Italian restaurants, so I guess it wasn’t so unique.)

I was starting to get board with walking and shopping. It was all tourist crap or expensive items anyway on Lincoln Road. And then I passed a spa my hotel had recommended. I walked in, and waited to speak to one of the nice girls working there. “Can I get in anytime before 5?” “What do you want?” “I’ll take anything.” I explained I needed to catch a flight, and just wanted a little pampering. They told me to come back in an hour and they’d fit me in for a shoulder and foot massage. So I headed off to a nearby Starbucks and just sat for an hour.

When I came back, the owner of the spa was there. “You’re early huh?” She asked. I was only 10 minutes early, which I didn’t think was odd. But I sat and waited….and waited…and waited. “Your appointment is at 5:30.” She eventually said. “No…I have to leave for the airport at 5:30…I was told 4PM.” The owner was shocked…thats not what she thought. She told me to wait as she tried to get someone to come in.

At around 4:30 the same girl that had helped me before returned, and the owner showed me to a massage room. I, thinking I was getting a shorter clothes-on massage looked confused. “You wanted a full body right?” “Sure….” I answered wondering how they’d fit a full 1 hour massage before I had to leave for the airport. But at this point I didn’t care. Everything had gone weirdly wrong and I just wanted to relax.

As she started she asked me what I wanted worked on. I responded with “I have a lot of stress in my back and shoulders.” So she started on the shoulders. But then…moved downwards pretty quickly. As I laid there I kept thinking….”No…she cannot be…she’ll surley be moving…no…god…no why is she just massaging my BUTT!” Then I realized she must have heard “Butt and shoulders” instead of “back and shoulders”. But I was so just done with this Miami trip, and so just tired from everything that I didn’t bother saying anything. She wasn’t a great masseuse anyway, so having her work on anything else wouldn’t matter, as it wasn’t relaxing. As I’m still thinking this through she says “Ah…..yes….you do hold a lot of stress in your butt!”

Next she told me how I should go to Jamaica because they “don’t like skinny bitches. They like Fluffy. You are fluffy, and you’ll get so much ass there, so many man would treat you like a queen there!” I didn’t know whether to curl up and die at being called fat or just start laughing. But she wasn’t done. “And Guurrlll! You gotta get you some of that KFC they have there. Its not like them chicken joints here. Its like your mamma’s home cooking! (I had to bite my lips to keep from laughing…my mom cannot cook anything.) You’ll gain like 20 pounds! But you’re Fluffy anyway!” At least she did finish before 5:30 so I could hop a taxi to collect my things and head to the airport.

So I paid $175 for an hour (well less than that) for a woman to lightly slap my ass and call me fat. Thanks Miami…

But hey, at least I didn’t accidentally lick my masseuse like Ryan Gosling did.