Deep thoughts about why i want a sauna. Or not.

I covet a sauna.

I like a sauna all right. I like the rocks and the earthy smell of your hair smoldering. But then, a couple days ago, I read about the fantastic health benefits of sauna-ing. I began to covet a sauna. 

Our friend Guy has a sauna in his basement. His very own sauna. It is electric powered, but an all-wood and glass real-deal. It kind of looks like a small woodland-style enclosed porch. When Guy's daughter was little, she had a playhouse (aka the box their new washing machine came in) positioned right next to the sauna. It was like father-daughter tiny neighborhood. Seriously, I wanted in.

But the YMCA has a sauna. Any day of the week, I can go over to the YMCA and sit in the sauna. 

So I did. 

I was sitting in the sauna, not staring at my phone. Phones fry in saunas. As do Apple Watches. I stared at the wall thinking deep thoughts.

This whole sitting-in-the-sauna-at-the-YMCA experience was pretty much exactly the same experience I would be having had I purchased a sauna all for myself. I mean, really, how much better could sauna time possibly be just because I owned the damn sauna? 

I had to admit, the sauna experience is the same regardless of sauna ownership. Especially because there's never anyone else in the sauna at the YMCA. Therefore, I should rejoice in the YMCA sauna as much I would rejoice in any at-home sauna solution. 

True, maybe it would be more convenient if I had a sauna directly underfoot. But the gym is like 10 minutes away. If I can’t manage to roust myself for a 10-minute journey, how much do I really want a sauna? 

Furthermore, if I need to undertake the ritual of getting myself to the sauna location, maybe it’s a more luminous experience worthy of even greater existential appreciation. 

I am no weak-kneed consumer desperate to acquire unnecessary worldly goods that wind up as non-biodegradable rubble polluting the ocean!