I wasn't expecting the envelope when it came: a few weeks ago, I'd gone to a sort of alumni get-together of my old fraternity, part of which was a raffle (maybe it was a fundraiser for one of the animal house chapters; I forget). Anyhow, the note said I'd won one of the bigger prizes, which was enclosed. It turned out to be a gift certificate for some sort of place called "There's the Rub". I'd never heard of them; from what I could gather, it was some sort of physical therapy franchise outfit. Why my old frat might have gotten involved with something that smacked vaguely of things metrosexual, I couldn't guess, but I figured what the hell... might as well give it a shot some day.

Absentmindedly, I put the certificate on the refrigerator under a magnet and forgot about it, until one Saturday, I found myself with a fair amount of time on my hands. There was a website shown on the card, so I did a bit of research. The locator showed one of their clinics (their term) maybe a few miles, in a reasonably upscale retail area. The website was maddeningly vague about the nature of the places, though: the description of what they offered was couched in nonspecific terms that somehow sounded distantly New Age to me, or something like that. But what made me do a double-take was the hours of operation shown: they said that on Saturdays they were open until 2 AM. I found that odd, but didn't think much of it. One thing I did notice, though: according to the website, their certificates came in a couple of different grades, and the one I had was the top of the line. Well, that couldn't hurt. As things stood, Saturday evening looked like a choice between hitting a watering hole for a few beers (what a novelty), or pulling out a DVD or two: no date, and no sports worth the name on TV, and no events locally, unless you counted some third-rate small college game (Twerp State against Pipsqueak U., as I was fond of saying). A phone call informed me that no, appointments weren't absolutely necessary for a first-time visit.

Fast-forward, then, to Saturday. I puttered around, taking care of odds and ends, and maybe about 9 or so on Saturday, pulled together some semi-presentable clothes, grabbed a jacket and the certificate, and headed out. I pulled into the parking lot of the retail area