Fish are gross...so are feet

Recently my husband and I went to Mexico on a sort of, look-at-us-all-cancer-free sorta honeymoon.

I tell you its been a long and crappy (pun intended) road to get here, and the fact that he's still alive is a miracle most days.

Not just from the cancer either, Jerk ate my ice cream sundae out of the freezer the other day and has yet to replace it....
YOU DON'T EVEN LIKE CHERRY SUNDAES!
No, Mike, I will NOT just get over the ice cream theft of the century.
Just because it was in the freezer for 3 days does not make it fair game!

But moving right along....

There is nothing like celebrating being cancer free then by giving your liver a cirrhosis inducing workout while lying on a beach in the tropics.

So we packed our stuff at the last possible hour (we are not good planners on this front), dropped the kid (who is now a rambunctious threenager) off at my mom's and skipped town.

I have been to Mexico a few times, and I gotta say I love it there.
I enjoy a couple of favorite places that just fill my cup o' life, like Xcaret and Tulum; I go back to them every time.
I plan to have my ashes, at least some of them, maybe my toes since they are always cold, spread on the Tulum beach when I die.
(The rest of me is going to other places around the world. Mike has a lot of work on his list if I go first, or I will haunt the shit out of him.)


To be 100% honest with you, I would love to go back alone, the tourist industry is incredibly protective of single white women traveling in their country, and really go out of their way to shield you. Honestly.
Or I was just too fat to be sold like the girls in 'Taken', but either way I had a nice time.

I didn't do a lot of spa treatments while I was there alone, as it was my first trip internationally, and I wanted to keep my credit card clear in case I had to bribe Mexican officials to pardon any indiscretions I had while I was down there.

For the record I was very drunk and very burnt and the closest thing I had to an indiscretion was tripping over my drunk feet while running to catch the little golf cart back to my villa after my birthday dinner.
Where the waiters were very liberal with the tequila I might add.

I slid like a first baseman across an iguana shit covered pathway while my tits flew out of the strapless dress that was trying its very best to keep my sweater meat from causing a scene.

I suppose I could sort of consider that like a spa treatment, I was technically drenched in rubbing alcohol and had a very nice lady rub cream on my skin.
Yeah it was polysporin, but that's pretty close to a spa cream.
I bet you could put it in a pretty bottle and call it "Restorative healing gel" and charge a fortune for it.

Anyways, since this was such a big celebration, we did a bunch of cool stuff this time around, including swimming with whale sharks in the ocean and going to the really fancy spa at the resort.

(I don't know why I felt the need to tell you the whale sharks were in the ocean, seems kinda self explanatory to me, I mean, those things are huge, you aren't going to swim in the pool with them, but whatever)

So when we pulled into the resort, I was most looking forward to getting into our swim up room. I went on and on about just bellying up to the bar from my bed, floating like a manatee with a margarita wedged in my cleavage and a really long straw. This was going to be amazing.

Unfortunately the resort had given our room away by the time we got there and we were stuck on the second floor. Which makes sliding around like a drunk manatee pretty damn difficult.
They don't do stairs very well I'm told, although I bet they could if there was a warm pool and a cold drink at the bottom.

So in an effort to pacify this upset, pale Canadian, they gave Mike and I a coupon for the Spa.
Score one for Liz.

After checking into our non drunk manatee room, we went to peruse the menu.
As we step into the lobby, I see these tanks of fish.

Now before I continue, let me tell you about me and fish.
I like them. I really do.
Preferably panko breaded with a side of fries and a nice cold beer.

First time I was in Mexico, I wandered (should read stumbled) into the lovely ocean and sat enjoying the warm sand and water lapping at my drunken ass.
Until I felt something brush my leg.

I didn't look down right away, but I knew what was there, and it was not a sexy merman.
(which was too bad, cause that would have been one more thing off the bucket list for sure)
A school of pervy,aggressive little fish were congregating around my bikini bottoms, and I slammed my legs shut to prevent what likely would have ended with me in a fish gang rape.

Its a real thing. They like to hide in holes and stuff to avoid predators and sometimes mistake humans for coral reefs. Google it.

(STOP!!! Please don't Google 'fish gang rape'. Trust me on this one)

These fish were really not afraid of people, as drunk tourists had been feeding them from the buffet for ages, so they just wouldn't leave you alone.
They even sucked on my fingers and toes...it was for sure going to end up as a fish penthouse letter had I not gotten the hell out of the water.

When you think about it, fish are by far the grossest creatures in the world.
They shit and piss in the air they breathe for instance.
Not to mention the water they drink.
Don't get me started about all the other fishy bodily fluids floating about in the water.

You just know there is no fishy stork dropping off fish babies in the ocean.
Gross.

Anyway, I think they are nasty unless on a plate or behind thick glass in an aquarium.
So I was shocked to see the tops of these little fish tanks open, and a chair parked right beside it.

When I asked the lady at the desk what this was all about, she said "your feet".
Which brings me to the other point, I hate feet.
They are gross and are hairy and sweet baby Jesus if you have one of those raptor claw second toes happening you stay the hell away from me!

So by far this looked like the kind of fresh hell I had been avoiding my whole life.

Stick my feet, into a tank of fish and their used old semen water, and allow....no wait..PAY them to eat me.

(and not in the fun way you all thought when I said eat me...not that I would want a fish to do that, as I mentioned above....wow this got weird quick didn't it? Spa day to fish porn in 2.5 seconds....)

They eat the dead skin off your legs and feet, for the record, although there are some spas you can be fully immersed in the water with the fish and they pick where they want to eat off you. Mostly in Asia and Europe though, which is likely a good thing with my fish rape phobia.

So after paying these nice Mexican ladies to let their pet fish use us as a buffet, we sat down. Mike got right in there, and those little buggers were all over him.
I wish I had been sober enough to take a picture, but they were wriggling in between his toes and all up is legs, really going to town eating his flesh.
It was horrifying.
If I had my way he wouldn't even put his feet in our bed most days but these poor creatures were eating him like he was creme brulee.

At this point I was sitting with my legs up on the sides of the tank, together at the knees, like I was in a birthing chair.
(they might try to jump up in to my business, you never know with fish, they're fishy like that...lol)

I wasn't 100% convinced this was a shit hot idea and thought I could trade it in for a pedicure, one that was done by a human. No eating or toe sucking required.

(This would only be encouraged if Michael Chiklis was like, researching a role on Mexican day spa workers and he had to give me a pedicure to help develop his character or something, then suck on anything you want. I am here for you to develop your craft you sexy bald man. xoxox)

Mike eventually called me a name, and said it would be a great story to tell, which is my Kryptonite.
For the sake of this blog, and your entertainment, I was gang eaten by fish.

With my legs squeezed together so tight I would have made a diamond in my knee pits, I slowly lowered my feet into the tank of fish.
I was immediately converged upon by a hundred little slimy creatures, all nibbling at my toes and my legs and the soles of my feet.

It kind of feels like a mixture of a feather duster and a small vacuum on your skin, but a teeny tiny one. It didn't hurt so much as it grossed me out, and they were very professional and business like for fish, staying mostly around my ankles and feet.
No rapey fish here thank goodness.

They went at me for a long time too, and you know the session is up when they mostly leave you alone.

Mike and I agreed that our feet were a bit smoother, but I have heard that amino acids in semen have some smoothing qualities, I suspect it was a combination of the two.

But I doubt they would put 'Fish semen soak with a free foot eating' on a spa menu...at least not in North America.