For a brief while I thought the column fairy had visited and put a big fat one under my pillow. But, alas, it wasn't as much fun as I had hoped.
The men I will be with at an upcoming bachelor party are pretty open and above board about things. We plan on watching videotapes of the Bucs' Super Bowl win, playing some Scrabble and Parcheesi, a few light, vegetarian canapes and then, if we all still have the energy, a group sing.
But the bachelorette party seems to be getting out of hand.
You know how it is when someone is planning a surprise party, or saying unpleasant things about you while you are out of the room, and then one suddenly gets silent and people begin exchanging guilty glances when you enter?
(You don't? Then maybe people aren't out to get you the way they are some of the rest of us.)
That's what we're seeing. Earnest, enthusiastic conversation suddenly dropping off into complete silence, followed by discussions of eye shadow color.
But I caught a word the other night.
Spa.
Even though some of the more posh spas admit men, let's face it, spas are essentially a female attraction. Most men aren't as worried about their complexion, pedicures and manicures as most women and, although men love being pampered, soaked and rubbed, most of them aren't about to admit it.
And massage therapy for stress relief means a different thing to many men than it does to most women, leading to embarrassing little misunderstandings as best represented by asking the question: "Why are you putting that oil on my back?"
Truth be known, most men don't know what goes on in many spas, much as we have no clue what goes on in women's restrooms and why they must be visited in tandem, or what women really mean when they say things are "just fine."
So why, we wondered, the secrecy?
Then the news hit. Strip club king Joe Redner is opening a spa just a couple of blocks from where the bachelor/bachelorette parties are planned.
"If that is the case," I told my wife, "I think you should avoid that. I wouldn't want you coming home looking like one of those top-heavy, wasp-waisted, Barbie-shaped girls that work . . . er . . . that I have heard work in Redner's clubs."
I thought of adding, "I want you just the way you are," but a faint warning alarm sounded at that part near the back of my skull where the hair prickles right before lightning strikes.
She pointed out that Redner's spa is not opening for a few months yet and is not planned as an adult business, therefore destroying my daydreams of Jell-O dips/wrestling, S&M bikini waxes, and serious post-sauna birch-leaf flogging and take-home videotapes of the entire experience.
Actually, it will be Redner's second nonadult venture and will be situated right across Howard Avenue from his first, Xtreme Total Health & Fitness Athletic Club, and is seemingly being welcomed with open arms by neighbors.
My friends who live in the neighborhood not only don't mind, but sound a lot to me like they are on their way to being Redner supporters. His enterprises, they point out, are improving the neighborhood, and he is an active participant in community and political events.
He knows more, they say, about the constitutions and laws of the United States and Florida than the people who have been trying for decades to use them to put him out of business, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them active in his next political campaign. (He has run twice unsuccessfully for the Tampa City Council and once for the Hillsborough County Commission.) And these are serious political activists.
All I would ask is that he would consider opening a summer camp next year. I'm pretty sure that would put antigay, antinude, antipretty-much-everything community activist David Caton and Mark "No Nudity at Nudist Camps" Foley completely over the edge.
And that, to quote another family- and propriety-oriented maven, would be a good thing.
