Jailhouse rocks compared to day at the spa
By Beth Teitell
Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Have you seen Martha Stewart on the cover of this week's Newsweek? The sun-kissed hair, the radiant smile, the jaunty pose. . . why, she looks absolutely fabulous.

"Martha's last laugh," the headline reads. "After prison, she's thinner, wealthier & ready for prime time."

Thinner, wealthier & ready for prime time.

Damn, I thought, gazing at Newsweek's photo illustration of the newly refreshed felon, I wish I'Dgone to the slammer.

Not that I'd be lucky enough to land such a gig. For that, you've got to be Someone. Have a height from which to fall. Connections are needed.

Prison is the new spa. It's Canyon Ranch in Alderson, W. Va., only cheaper!

Sure, the food stinks, but, hey, at least they people. Inmates at many spas - Kripalu in Lenox, for example - might be sentenced to a juice and broth fast - for thousands of dollars a week. And you know the government's not footing THATbill.

Heck, some of the things they do at actual spas wouldn't be legal if they tried it in prison. The hot stone massage that feels like it's burning the spaces between your toes. The facials given by needle-wielding guards. . .I mean, aestheticians. Pedicures that leave your cuticles begging for mercy.

Where's Human Rights Watch when you need it?

And try breaking out of a minimum-security spa. Actually, don't. It's very stressful, according to a former prisoner of beauty I interviewed.

"A friend gave me a gift certificate to a day spa," she began.

"I felt this pressure - you have to do this treatment, you have to do that one. Basically I was lying there with the cucumbers on my eyes and I was covered in mud. It was supposed to be very relaxing, but I could not wait to get out of there."

She'd been sentenced to a full-day term in a brownstone on Newbury Street, but after a few hours she made a break for freedom. "I pretended I just got a call from my mother and she needed a ride."

With that, she fled. "It was a Saturday and I wanted to spend the afternoon shopping in Back Bay," she added, "but I was afraid they'd see me, so I ran away."

As for Martha, she's supposed to walk out the front door of "Camp Cupcake" later this week to begin five months of house arrest at her estate in Bedford, N.Y., where Ralph Lauren and George Soros are neighbors.

Jeez, another great sentence - if you can get it.

Beth Teitell's book, ``From Here to Maternity: The Education of a Rookie Mom,'' will be published at the end of March.