the existential bubble bath

I have been on a business trip this week and am now back to tell all of the exciting details. I'll grace over the boring ones...

So somehow I was "nominated" (their word, not mine) to attend this business meeting with some other nurses at the place where I work. We were going to carpool to a place that The Hater affectionately calls "the Gatlinburg of the Midwest". You might think that six hours in a car (both ways) with two strangers would be boring, and you'd be partially correct if that had been your assumption. And although there are tidbits that could be told about three women refusing to make a potty pit-stop, I'd much rather get to the protein of this story.

We stayed at a super swank country resort while we were at the meeting. Now I've seen lots of mounted deer heads in my life, but I have never seen 30 of them all-together in one room. One big room with every other Midwestern wilderness animal's head that you can imagine. And it wasn't just one room of heads, either -- there were heads everywhere. Goats. Buffalo. Fish. Lots of types of deer. Foxes. Squirrels. Badgers. Birds. Bears. (You get the picture.) I can only imagine that it was the taxidermist's wet dream to land this particular job with a charge to stuff every walking animal to cover every square inch of wall space at this particular location. And although there are tidbits that could be told about walking around corners and being faced with lots of angry looking animals, I'd much rather get to the protein of this story.

The presentations I heard were nothing short of awful. It was almost interesting content, but you could hardly grasp any of it with the poor, poor delivery. There was some fancy tech, which was nice to break the monotony of boredom, but not even the most techy robot can save the worst public speaking skills. And although there are tidbits that could be told about how many games of spider solitaire I played on my phone during the presentations, I'd much rather get to the protein of this story.

My room, although scattered with at least 5 mounted dead things, was really nice. I had two balconies that overlooked a full lake and blooming redbuds and tulips. I didn't go out to the balcony, mostly because there were more than a dozen mosquitoes looking through the window at me, pleading for me to open the door. The beds were comfortable and the pillows weren't too squishy -- but la pièce de résistance had to be the bathroom.

Specifically, the jet tub. The jet tub that was about 2 1/2 feet deep, 5 feet long, and 4 feet wide.

Do you remember the scene in Pretty Woman (1990) where Vivian (Julia Roberts) takes the hugest bubble bath since the beginning of time (while singing Prince)? That scene was my motivation, but my bath put it to shame.

It was wonderful, even other-worldly. And I emptied the entire bottle of hotel shower gel into the water so that I, too, could have the mountains of bubbles that cascaded over the side of the tub. It was so deep that I practically floated. It was hotter than the center of the sun. The lighting was perfect. It was the most glorious bath that I may have ever had in my life*, and the best part was that I knew I wouldn't have to be the one who had to wash the tub out afterwards.

On the drive back to OKC, the three of us talked about what we liked the most of the trip. I was eager to tell my bathtub story and was shocked to hear that neither of them took their equally heavenly tubs for a spin. Seriously. When I told them how absolutely heavenly it was with the bubbles and the moment and the floating and the wonderful quiet -- they admitted that they made a mistake by overlooking the prize in the room. I think they must have been distracted by the moose heads over the beds.

And although we did spend lots of time together and tell lots of stories, I would hope that they remember my description of how peaceful and tranquil the bath was so that they will learn to take advantage of tubs they don't have to clean in the future. But they'll probably just remember that I was a 4-H chicken judger for two weeks when I was in middle school.

* The only thing the scene was missing was a cool glass of shiraz.

* By the way, if you live under a rock you may not know that the Lady Vols just scored their #8. Pat Summit is the bombdotcom. Wear that orange loud and proud, Vol fans! Cue up a chorus of Rocky Top for the ladies!