Page 8 - You can't Make This Shit Up!

A Riddle of Sorts
June 19, 2017
Sienna Italy August 2010
Here is the riddle. You are in a foreign country where you do not speak the language. You go to a natural healing sulfur spring. They offer massages. You really like massages. You opt for said massage. You are taken to a room atop a long flight of narrow stairs. The room has a window, a rusted claw foot bathtub, a dirty yoga mat on the floor and a prehistoric heavy wood table. There is a white towel laid on the table with a small square paper wrapped in plastic. They escort you inside the room and close the door. What do YOU do?
Back story. I had planned on celebrating my 40th Birthday in Italy for over 7 years. I put money away monthly. Studied maps of the boot shaped country. I researched tours, food, activities, churches, and wine. I watched “under the Tuscan Sun” on a loop.
A year before my 40th birthday friends of ours held a fundraiser. One of the auctions was a trip for 8 to a Tuscany villa. A culinary expedition of the region. Fueled with copious amounts of chardonnay, I talked the other 6 people at our table into going in on it. And...spoiler alert...we won!!! So not only was my dream of going to Italy a reality, now I was going with 2 other couples and our single adventurous friend, we will call her Jenith. Oh heck, that’s her name. I am not good at pseudonyms.
If Tuscany Villa sounds outrageous, it was, and is, and so much more. We stayed in a 100-year-old farm- house on acres upon acres of olive orchards. The view, the food, the entire experience exceeded my expectations. We ate too much. We drank too much. It was everything.
After a night of polishing off more than a few bottles of wine, someone suggested driving to the next town, Sienna, where there were these natural sulfur healing springs the next day. Four of the seven were on board. Off we went.
Sulfur, in case you didn’t know, smells like rotten eggs. And its green. It is pretty disgusting. I wasn’t really caught up in the “wonder of it all”, as much as I was pretty nauseous from the smell and the hot bath was too hot. The cold one was too cold. I am clearly very high maintenance.
Here is where that riddle I started this blog with comes in. Let me also state for the record, and to protect my badly hurt pride, that Sienna sulfur baths are where the Italians go. Not the tourists. Henceforth and thus...Not a word of English. Not one.
That brings me to the room. So I am no stranger to the massage. I will even venture to say up until that door closed behind me it may or may not have been one of my skills. Not to brag, but I am really really good at laying on my stomach and turning over.
So the first thing I ruled out in the room was the bathtub. I am smart. Pretty and smart. Then the yoga mat thing, no way. The table was my only reasonable option.