The Bad Massage

     Santa was very good to me this year and even left me a spa gift certificate in my stocking which I fully intend to use to go get a massage today.  (High fives, you North Pole stud, you!)  And every time I get a massage, I hope and pray with all my might that it doesn’t end up to be like the one I had a few years ago with the world’s most inappropriately awkward masseuse.

     When I go for a massage, I’m looking for nothing more than an opportunity to zone out and relax.  With kids and the every day pain in the ass stress of life in general constantly bitching and yapping away in my ears every damn second of the day, I get very few chances to just chill the hell out.  I am most certainly not interested in dropping a hundred or more dollars to make small talk and chit chat with some douche bag idiot about the weather or the price of tea in China all while I’m laying buck naked on a table in a dark room.  If I wanted that, I’d just strip down, turn the lights out, and lay on my dining room table while my twins and the dog run circles around me.  

     So, a few years back when we took the kids up north to a resort for the weekend, my husband very nicely scheduled an hour-long massage session for me.  When I arrived to the spa, I was asked if I minded having a male masseuse.  I said I didn’t care, because gender makes no difference to me — it’s all about the hands anyway, right?  I was told by a ridiculously smiley masseuse to disrobe and lie down on the table in the therapy room. I did as told and settled onto the table for what I hoped would be a relaxing sixty minutes of pure bliss. 

     However, when douche boy came back in the room jabbering a mile a minute, I knew that this session would be anything BUT peaceful. Homeboy talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked throughout the entire hour about everything under the damn moon.  I wanted so badly to scream, “SHUT YOUR FREAKING WORD HOLE, MAN!”  I tried so hard to just keep my eyes closed and tune him out, but it was no use.  I was doomed to suffer the mental torture and anguish of the Motor Mouth Masseuse.  Things started to get a little weird when I could actually feel his breath on my legs.  I had a little talk with God and told him to please let this just be my imagination, but it seemed as if he was REALLY REALLY close to my skin.

     Ewww doesn’t even begin to describe how uncomfortable I was starting to feel.  I mean, weren’t there supposed to be some sort of physical boundaries or something?  When he told me that he was finished and I opened my eyes, the dude’s face was no more than a few inches away from mine as he stood there staring at me and smiling ear to ear.  This guy had clearly been born with a stupid stick in his mouth.  I thought about opening up my can of whoop ass on him, but then my girly goods would be even more exposed.  He then had the uber balls to say to me with that psycho-killer grin on his face, “It’s been a REAL pleasure working on you Mrs. Nucking Futs.  I mean a REAL pleasure.  I mean I REALLY loved working on you. REALLY.  A LOT.”  I tried with all my might not to think about just what he’d been doing while I had my eyes closed that whole time, and I couldn’t scramble to get my clothes on fast enough when he finally left the room.  I felt dirty and violated and wanted to just get the hell outta dodge.  

     So, as you can probably imagine, I cross my fingers each time I get a massage now that I don’t end up with a creepy repeat of that particular incident.  With the exception of the female masseuse who tried to give me a boob massage one time, I’ve been pretty lucky ever since. Here’s hoping today is an uneventful, grope-free experience that leaves me feeling refreshed rather than in need of counseling.

RELAX? — That’s Just Nutty!

     Relaxation.  I suck at it.  I have a history of sucking at it.  I will probably forever suck at it.  No matter how hard I try, I just cannot let go of everything.  My mind is like an Energizer bunny racing over all the things that I should/need to be doing — it just keeps going & going & going & going.  In fact, I often think that long-eared, furry SOB’s marching through my head banging that damn drum of his 24/7 just to keep me on my toes. So, when I’m required to be laid up for a few days to recover from surgery, it’s not necessarily gonna be the easiest thing in the world for someone like me to do.  

     I have never been very good at relaxing.  I’m the woman who goes in for a massage, and the therapist says, “You’ve gotta be kidding me with this one.”  I don’t think I’ve ever had a masseuse who hasn’t commented on how tense my muscles are.  I’m like a knotted up stale pretzel that’s as hard as a rock.  I think they might have high hopes at the beginning of my appointment because I’m like a challenge for them to conquer.  However, halfway through the hour, I can sense their frustration and desire to just give up on me.  I swear I often hear a quiet little “Hot damn!” followed by a light clicking of the heels in the air from the therapist as I finally exit the room.

     I was also the only woman to almost get kicked out of lamaze class when I was pregnant with my twins. Lamaze is supposed to be all about reducing the stress and pain of childbirth by focusing your attention on relaxation and breathing.  Ha!  Not an easy task for someone who can’t EVER relax, much less when a six and a half AND a seven and a half pound baby are needing to somehow squeeze their way out between her legs. When we were at the point in the class where we were supposed to close our eyes and go to our “happy place”, and our partners were sitting behind us rubbing our backs, and the instructor was walking around the room talking in a soothing voice, I was the crazy pregnant lady who was giggling and looking around at all the loud breathing and forced relaxation that was going on. The instructor even had to stop her soothing voice more than once to call me out for disrupting the flow of things.  I just couldn’t get into the whole thing.  I felt like a complete phony because most people know that childbirth is anything BUT stress-free.     

     So, now that I’m supposed to lay low and take it easy after my surgery the other day, I am having a hard time not getting involved with the insanity that’s taking place on the floor directly below my bedroom.  My mother-in-law is graciously down there trying to hold down the fort, but I have this overwhelming desire to want to try to help.  It’s just in my nature. (Don’t laugh!  You knew what you signed up for when you chose to read a blog called “NUCKING FUTS MAMA”!! You didn’t really think I was normal, did you?!)  I’m used to running around like a chicken with my head cut off, and my brain’s not really sure what to do with all this inactivity.  

     I always talk about my imaginary deserted island and how much I’d love to go there and just chill.  Truth be told, though, I’d probably be up and down and out of my beach chair a gazillion times to gather more coconuts or take a dip in the ocean.  I’m just not a sit-still kind of a person.  I would love to just let it all go, but, unfortunately, I’m too much of a control freak. Maybe someday I’ll learn how to relax, but I have a feeling that won’t be until I’m long gone and my ashes are scattered about my fictitious little island in the sun.