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How to Ruin Someone’s Spa Experience

by Kirsten Sanford, Mar 20 2009

A few weeks ago a friend of mine told me that she was going to a spa retreat to relax and get away from it all. Wow! Sounds great, right?

Well, after she returned she told me about the spa. The whole experience centers around colonics. And, not just any old colonic, but a wheat-grass colonic.

Yes, that’s right. My friend had wheat-grass pumped into her colon for the purposes of “cleansing”. I can’t tell you how equally repulsed and amazed I was that she would fall victim to the claims of the colonic practitioners.

Of course, I told her about the science behind the use of wheat-grass as a supplement, and she started doing some reading of her own. She’s since come around to the science.

However, this week we decided to try out a spa here in San Francisco (where I assure you there were no colonics being performed on either of us!), and the topic of wheatgrass came up again. We were in the sauna, and my friend and I were discussing the nutritional value of wheatgrass. We were trying to be quiet, and not disturb the other ladies in the sauna, but I think I hit a nerve with our nearest neighbor when I said that wheatgrass was at best a placebo.

The woman piped in testily that it was not just a placebo, and that wheat-grass contains valuable chemicals found in no other food. I told her she should just go eat an orange.

Needless to say, the woman didn’t stick around for much more of our conversation, which turned to things like Kombucha and other miracle tonics, and left the hot room in somewhat of a huff.

31 Responses to “How to Ruin Someone’s Spa Experience”

  1. Kirsten, that’s just plain sick and wrong.

  2. MadScientist says:

    Good on you, Kiki. As for me, if someone told me that I’d fall on the floor laughing and they probably wouldn’t speak to me for a few weeks.

    I’d say things like “and after that, did you fill a champagne flute, say ‘bottoms up’ and take the champagne up the wrong end of the alimentary tract?” I always wonder what possesses people to do things in an ass-backward way. hehehe

  3. catgirl says:

    You should have asked the eavesdropper exactly which chemicals are in wheat grass that aren’t in any other food, and what their function is in your body. I doubt she would have known.

  4. Aaron Golas says:

    A wheat-grass colonic would definitely ruin my spa experience.

  5. Doubting Foo says:

    I overheard some moron in Starbucks this morning talking to his friend about how Obama’s opening up of embryonic stem cell funding would lead to mutant humans. He then started in on how “normal” kelation therapy was bad because it removed ALL metals from your body but he had a version that only removed the bad ones, “like aluminum.”

    I really wanted to chime in but I just sent a few eye rolls his way.

  6. Mrs. Grackle says:

    I can’t stand this gross wheat grass thing. I always imagine people get sticky green teeth after drinking it. I had no idea they made colonics with the stuff, but I’m not at all surprised.

    (Were you at Kabuki Hot Springs? Oh, I miss that place!)

  7. CJ Sevilla says:

    “I told her she should just go eat an orange.”

    What a kind way to say “try something else that also helps” and “buzz off” at the same time.

  8. Brian M says:

    I don’t keep quiet when I discuss woo in public. If the person I am talking to gets something from it, perhaps those people who listen on others conversations will get something out of it too. Besides, I love pissing strangers off. Its fun.

  9. Max says:

    How to ruin someone’s lunch experience: talk about wheatgrass colonics.

    What are the health benefits of a sauna?

  10. Bill says:

    Just thinking of wheat grass makes my stomach do a slow roll. Adding the word ‘colonic’ doesn’t help much. Ok…doesn’t help at all.

    It’s amazing how many people are falling for the detox treatment scams. I’ll say this for the CAM woo artists: they’ve become masters at creating bogus health issues, then selling billions of dollars worth of sham treatments for them.

  11. JFox says:

    Wheat grass up the ass is a blast!

  12. Doesn’t having wheat grass stuffed up your bum sound like an experience WORTH ruining?

  13. Paul Caggegi says:

    Whenever I look at herbal remedies that have no buisness being put in place plants don’t normally go, I recall a line from an Eddy Murphy movie (could be The Golden Child). Old Chinese man says to Eddy: “Yak groin. Good to keep the Yang up!” to which Eddy replies “Not on my Yang!”

    Ah Eddy – will you ever become irrelevant?

  14. LovleAnjel says:

    The “go do ___ instead” is an approach I like to use. I just had a woman call my office this morning (I am a geologist at a small university) asking me where she could buy certain minerals, and did I know anything about the health effects of their vibrations?

    I told her, “It’s BS. There is no scientific evidence behind that. You’re better off buying a bottle of vitamins.” She did thank me, and I hope she listened.

  15. Skepdude says:

    There you skeptics go ruining a perfectly good delusion! You ought to be ashamed of your devotion to evidence and that whole reality stuff. You make me sick, I’m gonna go take my homeopathic medicine and lie down and smell some nice aromas.

    Actually, I feel so sick, I think I’m gonna have to move my couch and bookcase around and improve my house’s energy flow to better handle my anger.

    Come to think of it, I think I’ll go to the local psychic so she could tell me if I have a restless ghost in my co-op so I can put a call to the local exorcist and exorcise the crap out of the spirit, which is also making me sick, what with moving all my stuff around and making all those creeping noises at night.Did you know that the building’s heat turns on at the weirdest times in the night when everyone is asleep? A phantasm for sure! And don’t come and tell me there’s a timer and thermostat on the building’s boiler and other kinds of ridiculous skeptical “explanations”.

    And all the toxins that have been building up on my body thanks to Big Pharma and the evil government are bothering me too, I shall stop on the local drug store and load up on some nice foot detox pads. You should see the water color after I use them, I can only imagine what all those nasty toxins are doing to me? Could my anger be related to that? Either that or it must be the vaccines I got as a kid, I can’t believe my parent’s allowed that poison to be injected in me!

    ***Head Explodes***

  16. T-Storm says:

    That reminds me of the Nick Swardson bit (And I don’t have it word for word).

    I took my cat to the vet because it had diarrhea. The doctor asked what’d I been feeding it and I said “diarrhea”.

  17. Jason says:

    Actually I kind of like the taste of wheatgrass. Sometimes I’ll toss back a bit instead of my morning Java. Works about the same. But then I like clove pancakes so what do I know.

  18. Bill says:

    Ah, but Jason…nobody does wheat grass colonics because they like the taste.

    :)

  19. nobody does wheat grass colonics because they like the taste.

    Not unless they are doing it wrong. :-P

  20. MadScientist says:

    Another question to ask them: Hey, is that an organically grown beanstalk poking out of your pants?

  21. Mike Beavington says:

    You know you need to get a good opening line. Just like a pick-up line or a good missionary, you’ve got to pull them in with some witty anecdote that makes them think that you have nothing to gain, but that you are a trusted individual. It’s basic psycholology like from Elliot Aronson’s psyc 101 text – Social Animal. I’d like to have a contest for the best opening line.

    “I remember those colonics. I had to give them up when they found all they did was clean out my wallet..”

    “I used to think that homeopathic remedies worked until my 1 year old ate a whole bottle of 12C arsenic. When I called the Poison Control center, they just laughed at me…he was fine.”

    It’s that hook, that anecdote that people want to hear, unfortunately in most cases, it would have to be something made up. I can’t even think of anything witty for wheat grass.

  22. John says:

    If they come near my ass with anything it will be bad for the health of the spa practitioner.

  23. I don’t care what the problem is, pounding wheatgrass up my ass is NOT the solution.

  24. I have a lawn full of grass clippings and a garden hose. Who’s up for some colonic bliss?

  25. tmac57 says:

    This gives “your ass is grass” a whole new meaning!

    If you love wheatgrass colonics , then you half have a brain. (sing that line)

  26. Dan says:

    It is amazing how angry the stupid get when their stupidity is shown to them. ” Go eat an orange.” I am not that nice when someone is butting in on my conversation.

  27. Paul Caggegi says:

    I have been laughing out loud for ten full minutes. Call me crude and childish, but all your ass jokes have really brightened up my day (will they ever get tired? I hope not). More ass-related skeptic stories please! *chortles with mirth*

  28. BillDarryl says:

    I am an avid Howard Stern listener, and cringe each time his sidekick Robin (a former nurse!) extols the medical benefits of her frequent coffee enemas. The rest of the show ridicules her, but she usually gets a big platform to spout (ha!) her views.

    Harriet Hall, the SkepDoc from Skeptic mag, wrote an article about the insanity and uselessness of colonics and detox diets. So I copied it and sent it into the Stern show, with a note offering it as ammo against Robin’s claims.

    Two weeks later, the subject of Robin’s health came up yet again, and before she could launch into her detox speech, Howard dug out the article and read it to her on the air! The article made her sound ridiculous, and knowing millions were hearing this confrontation in real time was just plain awesome.

    (A brief, gramatically dicey account of the incident is found here, at 6:05. Baba booey to y’all.)

  29. How To Ruin Someone’s Spa Experience

    You know, the more I think about it, if someone is willing to pay a spa to cram wheat grass up their ass, I’m not sure you CAN ruin their spa experience.

  30. colonics says:

    This is what i was looking for this afternoon cool :D how to ruin someone spa experience nice..:D

  31. Yoda says:

    Kirsten;

    Horse > Water > Drink

    Or more directed at you, sweet lips:

    Kirsten > Book > Read

    Have a good day!