In an alternate universe, I’m a semi-famous—not so famous that I can’t live a normal life, but famous enough to be rich/get invited to things and have people recognize me in public and tell me I’m funny—humor writer and a lavish spa day where I’m pampered from head to toe is just a Tuesday. Unfortunately, in the only universe that exists, I make JUST enough money to afford to rent the roof over my head, pay the grossly overpriced heat and internet bills and maybe splash out on a new pair of whatever knock-off trendy shoes Walmart is hawking for 1/4 of the price each month. Honestly, it’s tough to live within your means, but someone’s gotta do it. When I created a bucket list of thirty-five things to accomplish before I turn 35, I had to factor in the fact that I’m a broke-ass bitch and only put *a few* pricey items on the list, while also hitting up Dear ole Dad to join (and pay) for those triple dollar sign activities. As the classic spoiled baby, I ran a hard bargain for making a spa day into a family group activity, but when that fell through and I saw just how much it costs to step into a swanky spa (no seriously, there’s an attendance fee before you even book a service), I decided to narrow the search to spa-adjacent, and just from that one phrase you can assume how this story time ends. But please keep reading and see if I can make you laugh along the way. If not, you may request a refund.

In my life I’ve gotten a facial, a massage or two, and I’ve taken the highly sought out mineral bath of Saratoga Springs. This last one was a work perk and considering I worked at this 100% haunted spa for exactly one summer and got pink eye twice from touching dirty towels, I deserved much more than a free rust-colored tubby. The point of that ramble is to tell you that I’ve never done “a spa DAY.” I’ve never sat next to a rainfall reading a book, used the on-site pool or hot tub, taken a steam or a sauna, sipped a glass of champs and then had my body rubbed with oils and salts to make it smooth like butta. Hence why it made the bucket list. 

In my tireless research of spas in New Jersey that don’t require a road trip or a bank loan, I stumbled upon a gem only 40 minutes away that offered a lil package of Salt Cave, Sauna, and Salt Float. I am The Salty Ju and yet I’ve never salted myself in the name of relaxation, so it seemed like a sign that this was the time to try. The price was right, the reviews were all about how great the customer service is and how clean the facilities are*, so I dialed them up to book my appointment. 

*remember this snippet for later

The phone was answered with a greeting that I already didn’t understand and I questioned if I called the right place. This was followed immediately by a concerning amount of hacking. I start to say I have a question and Chokey McChokerson has to physically excuse herself from this dialogue, put the phone down, and hack some more. When she returns, she informs me that her coffee went down the wrong pipe and then the phones have been ringing off the hook and there’s so many people at the front desk. Ma’am, just how long ago did you take that coffee sip for all of this to happen while you’re in a near-death experience? We get back on track. I ask if I book a body wrap treatment can I still use these same cave/sauna/bath amenities. She says no everything is charged separately as their own service. (Internal eyeroll, of course it is.) I’m mid-booking the salt package and she’s giving me dates when abruptly she asks if she can put me on hold. A minute or two later she returns to tell me that the computer screen went black. While I’m wondering if I’m on Crank Yankers, she proceeds to help a customer with their towel and then tosses a few more phlegmy coughs in for good measure. When she finally manages to make my appointment, I set it for the day after a 3-day work conference so I can take a true mental health day of recovery after schlepping a handcart around a casino that still miraculously smells like cigs even though they were banned 30 years ago. Should that entire phone interaction have been a red flag for this establishment? Obviously. But after this winter full of icy winds, snow, and despair, I was just looking forward to a day of warmth, no matter what the cost.

Appointment day arrives and BOY OH BOY was I looking forward to this after 72 hours of peopling. I couldn’t wait to sit in silence, heat, and probably leave with glowing skin from all the pink salt exposure. I followed the very rushed instructions in between choking that I received over the phone: bathing suit in backpack, comfy clothes, hair on top of my head, no caffeine, stay hydrated. It was a cold, rainy day and to my immediate disappointment, I was shuffled into a freezing, pitch-black cave for my first sesh of the day. I was instructed to leave my shoes and socks outside of the door because apparently it’s better to be barefoot in the salt. The woman who led me in and told me to pick my seat out of a number of recliners then did an entire spiel about the benefits of salt therapy that I understood none of as she sounded like an old VCR on Fast Forward, toeing the line between two different languages. I remember exactly ONE sentence and it was this: 45 minutes in a salt cave is worth 100,000 hours in the ocean. That seems incredibly dramatic. Are we getting our salt stats from ChatGPT?

I’m left to sit in the dark with my thoughts, most of which are internally laughing at the ridiculous notion of someone spending 100,000 hours in the ocean like they’re a humpback friggin whale. I can’t read. I can’t take a nap because she told me reclining decreases the effects of the salt. Another made up factoid?! I can’t even cover my toes that have lost feeling immediately (shout out Renauds) with the blanket because when I tried to as soon as I sat down she barked at me that the feet must stay out. So I scroll through my phone and take a bunch of pics and videos like a screenager. I also fall asleep in an upright position like a grandpa in a recliner. Basically, I feel the full spectrum of ages in this brick planetarium full of salt. At the 45 minute mark, I have to pee because for once in my life I am not dehydrated. I assumed she would be coming to scoop me but my time is up and she’s nowhere to be seen. 

I emerge from the Cave of Wonders and I’m immediately met with a disappointed look and, “I didn’t come get you because your next room isn’t ready yet.” “Oh, ok. CAN I PEE?” I am allowed to, thank God. When I return from a Jimmy Dugan length wiz (this is why hydrating is inconvenient), I am unsure if I’m expected to once again freeze my toes off in the salt so I awkwardly perch on the bench outside of the cave. She tells me it’ll just be a couple more minutes and then she turns into an actual tornado of frazzle. It is exactly this moment when I clock that hacking lady who made my appointment, and this lady who has now started muttering to herself and erratically knocking on treatment doors are one in the same creature. A massage therapist pokes her head out and looks less than pleased but I’m the only one outside her door and I am quick to point the finger at who disturbed her slumber. #Wasn’tMe. Massage therapist and receptionist have a VERY tense exchange about how that room is needed even though it is very much in use and I gather through both raging eye contact and clipped tones that this massage therapist has had enough of this receptionists’ shit. She’s about one minor inconvenience away from quitting this establishment. Massage lady basically says buzz off and goes back into her room. 

At the same time, a woman comes out of a bath with sopping wet hair and asks if there’s a hair dryer onsite that she can use. She’s directed to the bathroom. A few minutes later, the cough-master hustles through the *very tiny* hallway at warp speed acting like a mad woman and complaining about how the room isn’t ready. Finally, she leads me to a locker where I can put my backpack and tells me there’s a robe and slippers in the bathroom, which is currently occupado by hair-drying woman. I lurk directly outside the bathroom door for an uncomfortable period of time. If the woman were to open the bathroom door and see just how close my face was to it (because that’s where the locker was and also I was trying not to get bulldozed by psycho receptionist) she would’ve screamed. But she did not open the door and that seemed to be the breaking point for this unhinged individual who should not be working in customer service.

She has a full-on outburst where she goes, “JESUS, SHE’S STILL DRYING HER HAIR?!” Then she manhandles two other massage therapists who are understandably so, hiding from her in a treatment room, out into the hall, and yells at them, “CAN SHE JUST CHANGE HER CLOTHES IN HERE?!” Um, I’m sorry, but do spa voices only exist in the movies?! She turns to me and points to the room and I understand that if I don’t hustle in there in less than five seconds, I may lose a limb. On my way in, I lock eyes with the massage therapists and it’s clear that both of them have had fantasies about the receptionist getting hit by a truck. The tension is palpable and I can honestly say I’ve never felt less relaxed in my life. 

I schlep out carrying an overstuffed backpack with my clothes, wearing a robe that’s for sure too short and slippers that are one-size-fits-all, which means Shaq could wear them. I feel like I’m in a college dorm shared bathroom with a bunch of strangers of all ages who have suddenly appeared in my changing time and are now crowding the cramped halls. As I continue to try and stay out of everyone’s way lest I get steamrolled with my b*hole hanging out, I somehow find myself face to face with one of the massage therapists doing the awkward dodge & weave and she literally grabs me into an embrace and asks if I want to dance. No ma’am, I want to disappear. 

The massage therapists are picking up on the terrible energy just as much as I am and they start calling the wrong names into the wrong rooms for their appointments. It’s a chaotic mess of shouting and running and me shuffling around in clown shoe slippers trying to stay out of everyone’s way until finally I am the chosen one to enter the sauna. Because yes, after all of this time the “room” that wasn’t “ready” yet was just a standard sauna that I would’ve been happy to share with others to escape receptionist tantrum from hell. I get in there for my solo sesh and immediately don’t know how to sit. The bench is too narrow to lay comfortably, but I try anyway with my arms across my chest, coffin style. Eventually my back reminds me that I’m not a young chicken and therefore cannot lay on wood slabs without tweaking something so I sit up ramrod straight because if I sink into the corner, my back will be touching the equivalent of fire pokers. 

As it turns out, 45 minutes is too long to sit inside a 111 degree room. Should I have suspected this before even coming here? Probably. But my threshold for heat is quite high considering I could sit in a hot tub for all of eternity and I accidentally make my baths scalding hot very consistently and still sit in them and sweat because I’m stubborn as hell, so I figured I could handle it. Unfortunately, I don’t have my water bottle with me and I’ve exhausted things to look at on my phone. A nap is out of the question because I’ve never spent time in the slammer and therefore never learned the art of a cement snooze. So I just sit there getting increasingly dizzy and thirsty. At the 50 minute mark, I excuse myself because once again this turd didn’t come get me…probably because she’s being investigated for hanging a customer by the hair dryer cord for taking too long in the bathroom.

Naturally, I have to wait for the elderly woman hunched over outside the sauna door to painfully slowly lace her sneakers and for a brief moment I have a final destination-esque vision that I get trapped in a hot room and my skin sizzles off of my body. Anyone who lived through the tanning bed era knows exactly what I’m talking about. Thankfully, I get the door open so that I can then tell someone else to move in order to get in my locker. Apparently this place has gone viral on TikTok and they’ve been getting an influx of crowds. I wonder what TikTok would think of that monster meltdown because methinks she’d be CANCELLED. If not for that then certainly for the fact that Spazz told me she’d bring me water in the sauna, then left me there to die.

If you haven’t already guessed by how this day has gone, my third room is “not ready yet.” I do some more lurking, now shivering because I just emerged from the coal room in the underbelly of the Titanic. There’s a fully clothed guy also lurking and we make weird eye contact that makes me uncomfy in my micro-robe. I had seen a room with a tub earlier on my hunt for water and it seemed someone had just come out of it. I am now led to that same room. It is at this moment that I realize these baths are not drawn individually, but recycled for more than one person. To say that is unsavory would be the understatement of the century but in the presence of the psycho receptionist whose looks could kill, I’m honestly too distressed (and afraid) to even question the cleanliness of this bath.* Mostly I’m distracted by the fact that I have to pee once again and the floor of this room is wet. Why is the carpet floor wet, Todd?! 

*circling back to their previously noted glowing reviews on customer service and cleanliness…who got a kickback to write those?!

I get another lightning speed salt float speech in Spanglish that I once again understand none of, followed by some major shade. Bitch tells me, “you were in such a hurry to leave each session, but THIS is the one you should stay for the whole time…I’ll knock when it’s time to get out.” Well babe, my appt was for 45 mins in each room and I stayed well past that. I can’t just rot in each extreme temperature until you’re ready to come get me because you booked every single one of your followers for the same time slot in a “spa” the size of my living room. Next time I’ll just guh head and pass out in your sauna from overheating and dehydration.

Back in the room with the wet floor, I see a giant tub, a standing shower, and that’s it. How you gonna put people in warm water and not provide a toilet? Is this some form of hazing? Did I unknowingly enter a sleepover full of teenage girls? If you are *still* reading this and you are indeed, a grown-up, you may be wondering why I didn’t just A. Speak up or B. Find a potty. And if there was an option C for I don’t know, that’s what I’d be bubbling in on the scantron, baby. I don’t know why it is that I cannot speak up for myself but I do know that if I could, we wouldn’t be able to laugh about these zany hijinks after the fact. So, you’re welcome for me just telling myself “you can hold in urine for 45 mins” and hopping in the shower to rinse because I thought that’s what Ms. Frazzle told me to do. I don’t know what I’m rinsing as I showed up clean, per instructions, but in addition to my averse to confrontation, I am innately a rule follower even when the rules make no sense.

Post-rinse, I climb into this giant bath and float on my back for about 30 seconds before I say immediately no. My head feels like it weighs more than my favorite Orca, Willy, and when I lay back the water is flooding my ears. Also, my arms don’t know where to go. It’s dawning on me that anytime I’m in a body of water, I am on a flotation device or jumping waves. I genuinely don’t know how anyone floats. I won’t dare try to comprehend the physics of it but here’s what I’ve concluded: my body is naturally at the top of the water, but it feels like I’m working every muscle to not drown and this is stressful and uncomfy AF. Can I get a life jacket in here?! Again, I cannot speak from experience as this is the closest I’ve gotten to a spa day, but it kinda just feels like a chain of near-death experiences with a high ticket price.

In the tub, I do a 180 and put my hands on the bottom, popping my butt in the air. (You’re welcome for that visz.) This is comfier because I don’t have to strain my neck like an infant trying to support their bowling ball of a dome piece, but then I’m touching the thicc layer of salt on the bottom, which feels slimy and weird. Also, my cheeks are cold as they are full-moon exposed to the air. For the remainder of this “relaxing float”, I twirl around like a NSFW version of Flipper. If there was a glass encasement around this room, I’d be putting on the *after dark* SeaWorld show of a lifetime.

Between holding in pee, water-logging my ears, spinning like a torpedo in lukewarm water, feeling the blister on my heel burning, and getting a waft of bad body odor every time I splashed that further confirms this tubby is NOT fresh…I’ve never been more over an activity that I paid to do in my life. I wonder if they tell everyone to wear their hair in a top bun so that less loose hairs float in the DEFINITELY shared tub but it seems as though body hair was not accounted for as a short black hair floats by me and I FINALLY call it quits. Yes you read that correctly, I put up with ALL OF THAT but this was the final pube straw.  

I hop onto the pre-soaked floor, and I’m taking a full shower cleaning other people’s flavors and crusty salts off of my skin when I get my “time’s up” knock. I’m ready to GTFO of here. Or tinkle on the floor. Whichever comes first. I change back into my clothes in the bathroom where I also see piles of other people’s hair on the floor and it’s time for me to skedaddle and never look back. I tell the HBIC who everyone FOR SURE wishes a raging case of diarrhea upon that I had a lovely experience so I can pay the balance and beat it. You can’t even look at someone these days without them spinning the iPad and saying there’s just going to be a couple questions to answer, so color me shocked that at no point during this transaction was there a prompt for a tip. Either this woman is the owner and she’s pocketing my total (God help us all) or she really thought I was going to cough up a wad of cold hard cash for this horrifying experience. An experience, might I add, that left me with water in my ear for such a long period of time that I panicked and booked a doctor’s appointment a week later to make sure I didn’t contract a venereal disease. Bad news for my haters, I survived. Even worse news for the nightmare on customer service street who hopes I forget about the full menty B she had in front of me…I forget nothing. She and her ratchet spa were swiftly added to the list of people who are dead to me and you can count this as my Google review. (Mostly because actual Google cuts you off at 4,000 characters and I clearly I don’t do well with length limits.) So there ya have it…another item checked off the bucket list and another lesson learned: no budget spa days.