Babymoon: Episode I: The Phantom Husband

Carly and I have decided that it's time to start reading to our baby. On the first night, I grabbed the book nearest to us (it doesn't really matter what I read, the point is for her to recognize my voice). It just so happened that the book I grabbed was Kafka's "Metamorphosis". Now, as I'm reading to them, Cletus starts kicking pretty violently. So much so that I can feel her whack my hand. It seems our baby loves philosophical prose. I expect her to be born wearing a graduation cap and gown, show me her PhD (obtained from online courses she took while Carly was asleep), inform us that she solved string theory on the placenta, and then ask for the car keys so she can go have lunch with Steven Hawking, tell him his theories are bunk and why, then stiff him with the check.

I have high expectations.

The baby's been kicking me a lot lately, especially right after we eat. She likes most of the things we feed her at this point. Or hates them. It's hard to tell which is which. What I don't like, though, is Carly feeling her own belly when the baby's kicking. It's not fair that she bogarts the kicks like that. She gets to feel them from the outside and inside? No, ma'am!

We decided that now was as good of a time as any to get away for a bit, just the two of us, and have ourselves a babymoon. That is, a vacation before the baby arrives. Sort of a spur of the moment thing.

Left Saturday morning kinda early, since we had an appointment to get to. We stopped in St. Joe for brunch, visited a farmer's market for about 10 seconds, bought some monkey bread, (because you can never have enough things that involve monkeys), and headed on.

Our first real destination was the spa. See, Carly's been feeling achy and this in turn has made her happier than is physically possible in this reality. To make her feel even better, we set her up with a prenatal massage. Rubbing the tension away from her shoulders, her legs, right out of her body. For over an hour, she was pampered and made to feel 10,000 times better.

I, on the other hand, was in the waiting room. If you're curious, there are 47 tiles on the ceiling of the spa, the wicker chairs are from Pier One and cost $39.99 (they failed to remove the tag on one of them), and the aromatherapy candles they had lighted smelled like the unwashed feet of a hippie (in case you're curious, that smells like a combination of dirt, patchouli, and a smug sense of self-righteousness).

Then, the all-female employees begin to discuss why their current attire makes their boobs looks too small, or hurt them or make them look like a floozy. Bear in mind, they're around the corner and can't see me. Also, they must have forgotten that I was there, since they offered everyone else that came into the place a bottle of water but me. As this riveting conversation continued and I learned more about the wonderful people in the establishment and their mammary issues, one of them actually paused in mid-sentence and whispered to another employee, "Is there a client waiting?" The response: "No, it's just the husband of a client waiting." "Oh, so anyway..."

Then, I burned my face off with the aromatherapy candle just to get the full painful experience.

But wait... then, after that little gleaming nugget of English excellence ended, one of the fine staff members (I assume Floozy) comes around the corner and, I kid you not, plugs in the little fountain in the entryway. The tinkling sound of the water was like torture. You might even say it was... water torture. On me. In the waiting room. About 10 feet from it. With a face that smells like roast pork and hippie.

In walks a client. She's obliviously one of those women that gets massages and facials every week. I say this not to be stereotypical, since she knew all the women by first name. They spent 10 minutes going over the specialties of each employee and how good they were at their jobs. I know now that Vee (the owner) has hands that are as strong as a man's. I wish I didn't.

She books an appointment later on that day with Man Hands Vee, and trots her way out of the spa. So, now it's just me, Floozy, fountain of Death, hippie candles, Pier One wicker chairs and a year old copy of Blender magazine to keep me and my patchouli smoked ham face company.

But Carly looked the most relaxed I'd seen her in ages. And that's what matters.

What adventures will Carly and Jon have on the rest of their trip? What fantastic foods will they experience? Who will get a pedicure? And what's the deal with the car salesman?

All this and more, in Babymoon: Part 2! Coming soon! Same Carly time! Same Jon channel!