LOTL

Because I work at Australia’s Hogwarts I am entitled to take advantage of some of the services they offer.

Let me rephrase that.

Because I work at Australia’s Hogwarts I am sometimes obliged to act as a guinea pig for the students who need to practice their skills.

Today was my lucky day.

The head of the beauty school booked me in for some pampering. As you can imagine I was thrilled.

When I arrived I was told to take my clothes off. I was a little shocked. As much as I enjoy walking around my workplace naked I was just not expecting it.

Let me rephrase that.

I do not enjoy walking around naked at my workplace.

So anyway, I got naked, put on my strapless terry-toweling, elasticised ball gown and walked into room 203, hoping no one would see me.

The room erupted.

“SAM!”

“Sam’s here!”

“Aw! My Sam is here! Hello Sam!”

Oh. God.

I felt in no position to remind them that my name isn’t Sam.

There were two girls allocated to complete my beautifying. Firstly there was Cuna whose job was to apply several layers of goo to my face and burn me under a hot fan. Then there was Rosie whose job was to tickle my feet and then file down the tops of my toes.

Cuna started by telling me I had beautiful skin but that I was most likely sunburnt as all Australians are. Especially my chest. Right. It must be all the topless sunbathing I’ve been doing to rest up before the next game of bikini-clad beach volleyball. Either that or my boss has installed Solarium lights on the stage roof at Bada-Bing.

Pervy bastard.

We got off to a bit of a shaky start on account of my extremely ticklish feet. I couldn’t stop laughing. It was pathetic. And then the woman in the bed next to me started laughing. I should clarify: she was in the next bed over. Not next to me in the bed we shared. Although that would be awesome.

Let me rephrase that.

That would be fucking awesome.

Eventually I stopped laughing. It was partly mind-control and partly the fact that my face was on fire. Cuna was rubbing what I can only assume to be hot coarsely-ground rock salt into my face. And my sunburnt chest. Then she wheeled over a giant heating machine and put it over my face. I’m assuming it was the sun but I couldn’t be sure as I had my eyes closed. If I wasn’t sunburnt before, I surely was now.

When the sun died down I began to relax.

I woke up to a sour taste on my tongue and realised I had fallen asleep with my mouth open just before the stage I will refer to as “eucalypt mist”. It did not taste good.

Suddenly a very loud noise startled me. I peeked an eye open and saw that Rosie the foot filer had fallen off her stool at the end of my bed. Presumably from the stench of my feet. I did warn her.

After that it was just one thing after the other. Cuna seemed to be practicing the fingering for Beethoven’s 5th on my cheeks. The “calming” CD that they were playing skipped for at least ten minutes. It was “Summer in the City” (possibly inspired by their harnessing of the sun itself) but it never got past the first riff. Rosie the foot filer held one of my legs up in the air and to the left for a really long time. The other leg remained on the bed.

Did you forget I was naked?

Soon after it was all over. Rosie helped me back into my glasses and necklace. I couldn’t have done it without her. Cuna lay my clothes out for me to change back into. Except my shoes. In their place was a small pair of paper thongs. I was instructed to wear these home as my shoes would ruin my toenail polish.

Because I work at Australia’s Hogwarts I was devastated that no one I knew saw me with my glistening complexion, natural glow and the feet of a professional foot model.

Let me rephrase that.

Because I work at Australia’s Hogwarts several hundred people I know saw me with plum-coloured toenails, avocado stuck in my eyebrows, a face that could’ve starred in a Dominos commercial and wearing a paper g-string on each foot.

I love my job.

Let me rephrase that…