Sauna True Facts of the Day

In the twenty-four years that I've been a member of the Dolphin Club, I've known two or three people that could swim in the cold San Francisco Bay, take a normal-length shower, and not warm up in the sauna. For the rest of us, swimming in the winter means spending about one minute in the sauna for every minute spent swimming. Leaving the warm room too soon leaves a person performing a hypothermic dance in front of their locker and scampering back to the sauna to finish dressing. This enforced collegiality makes us prisoners of one another and slaves to each others' stories, opinions, and statements of true fact. At its best, this positive social interaction is the fifth vehicle for increasing endorphin levels and creating an addiction to cold water swimming.

One recent true fact cost a club member ten dollars. Phil Fernandez reported that the Pope had commissioned a perfume maker to concoct a personal scent in the same vein as Madonna, JLo, or Justin Bieber. The rest of the people in the sauna waited for the punchline while Phil protested the veracity of his tale. One individual was skeptical enough to make a ten dollar challenge. Unfortunately for that person, it turned out to be true that Pope Benedict ordered a custom-blended eau de cologne from Italian scent designer, Silvana Casoli. As reported by ABC News, "Casoli is not new to 'spiritually-inspired' scents. She created perfumes for pilgrims on pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. They were called 'Water of Faith' and 'Water of Hope' and were so popular that priests presented samples to the pope, which gave him the idea that he would like his very own." Now, the papal eau is one more sauna factoid to add to an extensive and growing collection.

The second sauna true fact of the day is vibrating tattoos. We were talking about the recent Tattoo Expo at the Cow Palace and Joe Locke said, "They now have vibrating tattoos that tell you who is phoning or texting you." Not one to readily squander ten dollars, I waited until I had finished warming up and consulted my internet search engine of choice. Sure enough, Nokia has applied for a patent for a material that's attachable to the skin and would produce a micro-vibration triggered by a nearby electronic device. Who knew? While not all sauna true facts are actually true, the hugely varied membership and expertise of the club members makes it risky to contest what may seem to be an astounding assertion. The next major breakthrough might be a heat-tolerant smart phone.