It'Sauna Get Hot

#71 - I belong to a health club. It comes with my HMO. I don’t go for the workout. I go for the swimming pool, the sauna, and the jacuzzi.

Welcome! I’m glad you are here. 

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It'Sauna Get Hot 

I belong to a health club. It comes with my HMO. I don’t go for the workout. I go for the swimming pool, the sauna, and the jacuzzi. 

I love the sauna. It’s embracing. I can feel it in my bones. Like I can feel the humidity when I step off the plane in Houston. You can almost cut it with a knife. But I digress. 

Quite often, I’m the sole occupant for the 25-30 minutes I’m in the heater. It’s then that I can slip into almost Everland. Just me and my thoughts. 

And it can get crowded, which lends itself to the topical conversations of the day, usually sports and politics. I don’t think there has been one time when with a group of people someone doesn’t start talking about something or another. That someone is usually not me. 

I recently heard these discussions. 

* 

A group of young adults were talking sports. They seemed knowledgeable from what I heard. They discussed the pros and cons of the offence and defense, what was strong, what was weak, and what the team’s future looked like. 

A couple others in the sauna pitched in a thought or two. I didn’t have anything to say, I’ve lost touch with just about everything to do with sports, especially pro sports. Excepting track and field. And sumo. Baseball and swimming were my sports when I was young. I was a pretty good long-distance runner. 

One of the guys turned to me and asked, “Who do you think will win?” 

From not really paying attention, to regaining focus, I slowly said, “Well, I guess I don’t know.” I asked him, “What sport are we talking about?” The guy just looked at me. 

Perhaps you had to have been there, but the room got quiet then we all busted out laughing.  

I think they must have wondered how anyone, even the old(er) guy, could get along not knowing, as it turned out, who was contending for the basketball title during March Madness.  

The four younger guys soon left the sauna. There were a couple more chuckles. 

* 

And there was this conversation - 

We all remember the recent drowning of Obama’s chef. One fellow thought the drowning to be questionable as the chef was shown to be a good swimmer.  

Pundits, showing video tapes of him in a pool, claimed him fit and capable, or even an expert swimmer. 

Another fellow, while agreeing that the drowning was suspect, didn’t think the chef was a good swimmer at all. I agreed with him. 

The fellow laid it out. 

“He was wearing flippers and kicking way too fast for their efficient use. He was stiff, like a board, with no body rotation enabling him to turn his head and take a breath. His left arm and shoulder didn’t clear the water on its recovery stroke producing wasted effort and drag on his forward motion. He was trying to power his way through the water. That’s tiring.

“When he rolled over on his back, having covered some distance in one breath, it looked as if he came up for air, rather than to say, ‘Look, I can swim’. He was equally stiff on his backstroke. He wouldn’t have lasted long in deeper open water. I would have rather seen if he could tread water. It would have served him better.” 

The first fellow asked, “What do you think happened?”  

“I don’t know. But I don’t think swimming was the issue. It doesn’t appear that he hit his head falling off the paddleboard. Something smells fishy about the whole thing. Maybe he was drowned from below. A scuba diver could have made the distance easily from another location and did him in. Stranger things have happened. Perhaps he knew too much about something. Reports first said Obama wasn’t at the scene, then reports said he was.” 

That started a run of conspiracy theories and disbeliefs regarding same.  

I closed my eyes pretending to be disengaged from the conversation. Talk of politics and religion gets all involved in deep water fast. 

* 

Here’s what appears to be a pet peeve. Those of us there could relate. Perhaps you, as well. 

A lady was talking about how she was getting tired of all the “How’d we do?” surveys. They’d gotten out of hand.  

She went on. “Every business that has your email sends one out. ‘Please take a few minutes to fill out our survey so we can improve our service’. Or ‘Review our product. It helps us out.’ And if you don’t reply to the survey, some send a reminder. It’s not the time it takes, even if just for ‘a few minutes’. It’s an imposition, an implied obligation. I don’t want to help them sell their service. They should give me a discount if they ask me to give them a review or help them with their employees. I’ve given them my money, don’t take my time. If I like the service or product, I’ll come back.” 

I could see what she was saying. It seems she had given it a lot of thought.  

* 

So, the sauna turns out to be a place to easily engage with others, often strangers, about what’s on your mind without offending anyone - usually. Some conversations get heated. 

I hope you enjoyed these snippets from the Sauna. There are more. 

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