flotation tank, chapter 2

After your session in the flotation tank, you shower down, put isopropyl alcohol in your ears (duh), get dressed, and come out to a nice cup of hot tea. Pre-float, I was given four options for post-float tea: something like Bliss, Balance, Fortifying, and De-stress.
Whenever I'm given a choice and bliss is among the options, there's really no choice. I'll have a cup of bliss, please.
When I come out of the tank room, David is waiting for me with my mug of tea. He asks the thing I am hoping he will not ask: "How was your float?"
Uh oh.
"It was nice!" I say, though I cock my head as I say it.
Rats. Now he knows there is more.
I dunk the tea bag to make sure it's well steeped in bliss.

"Good," he says warmly. He waits. I have his full attention, this kind young man. It's possible he has celebrated his 30th birthday, but not long ago.

I try to decide what kind of conversation this is going to be. I could point out the positives about the experience, say nice things about his spa, mmmm over the tea. But you reach a point in your life where more and more often the feeling is why am I holding back? Shouldn't I just go for this?
I take a deep breath. "It reeeeeally stung my vagina," I say to this poor guy who just wants to run a small flotation tank joint,  is that too much to ask, for god's sake.
I notice his Adam's apple bob, just once. He pulls up a chair and sits.
"I'm sure this happens with other post-menopausal women," I say, truly assuming this is true.
"No one has ever mentioned it before," he says.
I'm so sure this is not just me and my sad little nether regions that I say a little too loudly, "Of course they don't say anything!"
Now that I'm in it, I have to keep going. You know me and completion.
"After you've had kids, when you lie down in a tub, the water fills up your vagina," I explain to David. To keep this excruciating conversation light, I say, "Maybe not your vagina."
"Huh," he says. "Whenever you get in water?"
"No, just when you're horizontal," I explain. Oy.
"I didn't realize that," he says, blinking a bit more than one otherwise might.
"Yep," I say, finding the vehicle of this conversation has no reverse gear and a very wobbly steering mechanism to boot. "And then after menopause, there's no natural...you know...protection. Like the tissue in there is really..."

Dear Followers, I actually do go into a little anatomy lesson with poor, sweet David. I am guzzling bliss tea and it is not working.
"Huh," he says when I finally pause to let both of us breathe. "My mom has never mentioned this, and she's post-menopausal, too."
"How many children has she had?" I ask, hoping to see his mom and raise him my multiple births.
He calls my bluff. "Four," he says.
"Oh." There is a very long pause, and I go back to my tea.

A couple of days later, I get a brief email from David: "Hello, Paula. I just wanted to let you know my mother has never felt any discomfort while floating." It is a small comfort to imagine their conversation, but somehow it soothes the disappointment in me.

Everyone in the family is eager to hear how the float went, because I had been talking about its approach for weeks.
When I tell the story to Yani and Ting, on separate occasions, they both ask the same question, "So, you couldn't just get out of the water? Are you actually locked in or something?"
"Gosh, no. I could have gotten out, but I paid for an hour, and he gave me an extra half hour."
They both say something along the lines of: "So, wait a second. Your vagina is like on fire, and you don't get out because you paid to have your vagina on fire for an hour?"
"Well, maybe next time I'll try something different."
"What!? You're going to do it again???!!!"
"Well, it's three floats for the price of two. And you have to use it up within a month."
"Oh. My. God, Ma." That's Yani.
"Hmm. I see what you mean. But still." That's Ting.

With Yani I float my brainstorm: "But I'm thinking that if I maybe put a small piece of duct tape..."
"Ma. No. You are not going to duct tape your vagina shut."

Laura and I are scheduled to have simultaneous float sessions in a couple of days. I will report back some time thereafter. Bliss tea, anyone?