Operation Pamper: The Secret Spa Mission
Friday the 13th. 10:55am. Pfister Hotel Lobby Bar. Black Ops Mission engaged. Decompression fluids in process. Relaxation level at Level Orange headed towards Blazing Red.
I was witness to a secret mission at the Pfister this morning. It included a fair dose of intrigue. I never felt in danger as I saw the mission going down, viagra however. There was hardly any dagger, but plenty of cloak. Well, robe, actually.
Seeing three women looking like they’re ready for the weekend to start a little early in the day on a Friday in the Pfister lobby is like a bell going off in my brain that says, “Hey, these ladies probably have a story.” I wasn’t wrong.
I took a seat next to the trio and asked, “What are you ladies celebrating? You look like you’re in a festive mood.” They put in three drink orders, the kind of ones you make when you don’t have to go back to work, and smiled.
“We’re having a little R&R before our spa visit. Just to really relax,” said one of the women. Sounded like a pretty nice Friday to me, so I followed up to see if I could ask them some questions and write about their day.
That’s when eyes started to shift back and forth, questioning looks appeared on their faces, and I started to get the feeling that they thought I was working for some covert operation. Then they landed the deadliest question any writer who talks to people and writes about it fears he or she may hear.
“Uh…where does this go? We need to be careful.”
Now, that’s exactly the sort of response that generates two strong feelings. The first feeling is one that tells you in your tender soul to just leave the ladies be and let them enjoy their day. The second feeling is that one where you’re just not going to stop until you get the full scoop on the nefarious doings potentially going down. I’m weak in the knees when it comes to stories of people doing things they maybe shouldn’t be doing, so my tender soul took a rain check on taking the lead and I kept going with my questions.
I explained to the ladies that I wanted to hear their story and write about it for this very blog. The word “blog” made them open their eyes wide with a look of terror. Looking back at me they had expressions on their faces that sort of said, “You’ve found us! Curses! Drat!”
I asked, “What’s the matter…you playing hooky?” I thought back to all the times a few friends of mine and I might have slipped out of work for an unplanned drink, cookie, or, the granddaddy of them all, afternoon nap. Yeah, I realized that if someone had approached me in those moments wanting to write about my slinking away, I wouldn’t have taken too great of a shine to that proposition.
Immediately, the ladies assured me that they weren’t playing hooky. “No, no! Nothing like that,” said their default spokeswoman. “We just shouldn’t really spread this news around that we’re here right now. It’s sort of a special thing.”
I’d love to tell you that they were all trained ninjas or women on the run from the law, but it seems that there was no soul stirring betrayal happening. The women weren’t employed in some corporate espionage scenario. They just happened to be three great workers who their boss had recognized within their company with a trip to the Well Spa on this particular Friday afternoon.
“We told a little white lie about where we were going to the rest of the people we work with. We didn’t want them to feel bad that it was only the three of us getting to spend the day in the spa.”
I learned more about the who, what and why of how the ladies came to get their afternoon off, but my tender soul finally kicked in. They let me snap a picture of them toasting the day, but I’m not telling any more than that. Yours is a little white lie that I’m happy to keep, ladies. A fine spa mission to you all, and you’re right–your co-workers would have been very jealous of your perfectly divine day. Operation Pamper is a super sneaky success.
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