I sat in my parent's snazzy new infrared sauna today. Wow. No, really - wow. I was rather skeptical when I heard of its purchase. To know that it was the first major purchase my father made to celebrate his retirement from the U.S. Army was funny. This isn't just your regular sauna, though - this is an INFRARED sauna. It doesn't produce steam, it just sort of slowly heats your body while leaving the air around you as is.
According to its brochure, it has a million and one health benefits, including perhaps the one most important to me: it's good for my asthma. Which of course explains why my doctors in Germany used to make me sit under a sort of miniature version of this thing whenever I got a cold. They apparently knew what evil can happen when a cold hits my lungs - and unlike my American doctors, who simply wait until it gets really bad, then make me sit and take albuterol nebulizers while being pumped full of corticosteroids, (or hospitalise me), these German doctors sought to prevent evil cold infiltration. At the time, I thought it was benign, but silly. Now I understand. Oh, yes, I understand. I can rave of the glories of the infrared sauna, my friends. You heard it here... it works. And some day - oh, some glorious day - I, too, will have one of my very own.
Now, I don't mean to be materialistic or greedy - especially not after today's sermon - and I'm fully aware that, no matter what the wonderful health benefits of the contraption, it is a luxury par excellence. I am furthermore aware that I have many years of paying back Mother Yale before I can reasonably presume to even consider such a purchase. All I'm saying is, if someone some day decided to give me one of these, I wouldn't complain.
01:16
