Spa treatment

Not long ago in a post entitled The Monday from Hell it was noted that a spring broke on my personal oboe rendering it unplayable. Here's the anthropomorphized version of the story and what has followed to this date:

"Oh dear me," she cried, "I simply cannot go on like this. Look at me. I'm a wreck. My springs are loose, my pads are shredding, and my joints, screws, and rods are corroded and black. You keep thinking I'm fine, but please! Tear your eyes away from those adorable children and LOOK at me."

I answered, "You simply cannot break down now, dear, you and I have a date with Handel and Bizet in a few days. All of our friends will be there. You will just have to get a stiff upper reed."

"No, oh, no, I can't..." she said, and fainted.

I was floored. I was devastated. I drank several glasses of wine. I cried under my desk. But she would not revive. What to do with her??? Meanwhile, Handel and Bizet would not wait.

I accepted the services of a stranger for my musical meeting, noting...how crisp and clear was this oboe's action, how cool and collected she seemed.

Could my sweet old oboe really be in need of some pampering? Had I woefully neglected her? Would she come back to me with love in her keys and a song in her bore if I sent her to a spa for some special oboe treatment?

I found a spa on the internet. (Good old internet. The things you can find.) Nadia's Luxury Spa for Oboe Ailments, it was called, and it looked to be just the solution I was looking for. The best of the best, said the little voice in my head.

Your oboe will never feel better after our deep tissue massages, the spa appealed.

Indulge your English Horn in a full-system detox using only all-natural agents, the caregivers cajoled.

D'amore facials, pedicures, and skin-softening treatments will make your instrument sing again, the banners beckoned.

I looked over at my sad, forlorn little gal and sighed, "anything for you, dear!"

Luckily a box had just arrived for one of my adorable children, the perfect size for shipping off the old diva. I wrapped her tenderly in a WalMart bag, surrounded her with last week's local newspaper proclaiming the potatoes off to a good start--the best I could do, you see--and put her in the care of UPS, which bore my little girl safely across the 2,000 miles.

Nadia's voice came to me gaily across the cell phone towers: "It's gonna take a lot to get this ol' gal back in shape!"

A lot of tender loving care. A lot of taking-apart-and-putting-back-together. A lot of days eating only celery and drinking fresh spring water with no coffee and certainly no fried food. A lot of nights of good sleep.

A lot of cash. My husband said, "anything for you, dear."

Let's see: four times what I paid for my wedding dress and all the accessories. Not that I paid much, because I made it, but still, it sounds interesting to say so.

Six months of daycare for the wee daughter. Hmm.

Two sets of Chevy all-terrain truck tires.

An outlandish yarn crawl? (Like a pub crawl except one doesn't drink, one purchases yarn.)

Ok.

It was starting to seem...not that unreasonable. I sighed again.

Especially because it's--well--it's her. She's part of me.

Especially since the old gal will have to continue to live in her own skin, she's not getting a facelift, it's just not happening. She'll be stuck with her same old plating because the only reason I'd give her that treatment is if I were going to say goodbye, and she and I are old childhood friends and will remain so. She and I will age together, looking a little raggedy on the outside but shiny on the inside. Still able to get the job done, just without turning heads any longer.

So I told Nadia to please commence luxury oboe spa treatment as soon as she was able.

We'll have our rendezvous on the Jersey Shore to look forward to right after she gets back, and I intend to be ready for her. In the months after, we'll spend many more hours in the company of the world's finest composers and the world's best...junior high students.

So now I'm listening to the adorable children snore the afternoon away, and think of my little old gal sipping carrot smoothies, head and feet wrapped in towels, attentive hands soothing away the years of tarnish and replacing the creaky parts, luxuriating in double-reed bliss at Nadia's spa.