Spa therapy

Recently, my husband asked me a loaded question: "Wanna go to a spa?" He'd been invited to do a his-and-hers review of a new resort a couple of hours north of Toronto. He was to fish and I was to spa. My first thought: Great! A reaction that, on reflection, made little sense. Because when it comes to spas, my experience has been a little, well, spa-stic. (Perhaps like these travel trends you don't want to try.)

I once got a half-hour massage in a lavender-scented, candlelit, ocean-sounding, comfortably warm room. My masseur's hands were big, sensitive and skilful. Sounds ideal, right? Did I mention that he talked to me during the entire procedure, hoarsely complimenting my body as he pushed the heel of his hand along my ass, confiding that before joining the spa he'd been a bricklayer. Great—I'd just been worked over by a horny construction worker.

One bad spa experience after another

Then there was the "facial" in a downtown Toronto spa. As the esthetician ground her knuckles into my neck and shoulders, I seized in pain. "I can't believe how tense you are," she exclaimed. When I told her that she was being a little too hard on me, she insisted it was necessary to relieve the tension in my muscles. Never mind that she was causing it.

Another esthetician once forgot about me as she waxed some poor soul on the other side of a curtain divider. One side of my face got steamed for 20 minutes. I was steamed for much longer.

And even when spa treatments go well, there's still an awkwardness. For me, it starts with the naked-in-public thing and the whole library-hush atmosphere, continues with the product sales pitch when you're still weak from your treatment and low-fat "meal," and ends with the gratuity question. In the middle of this, you may or may not experience a stress-relieving massage of some kind.

This is relaxing?