Naked and drooling

August 1, 2009

I know people who won’t get a massage.  It has something to do with the fact that you have to take your clothes off and a relative stranger rubs you all over.  What’s wrong with that? 

If I could afford it, I’d get a massage every week.  It is the only thing that puts my stubborn headaches to rest. 

You don’t even have to be naked.  My masseuse instructs me to “get undressed to whatever level you’re comfortable.”  The first time I got a massage, I climbed under the sheet fully clothed.  Halfway through, I was begging to take my clothes off.

You lie on a soft table with a warm sheet folded over you, face down.  Your head rests in a padded ring with a hole in the middle through which you breathe and drool.  The masseuse starts with your problem area.  For me, that is usually my neck. 

Immediately, she finds the central point of my tension and pushes on it intently.  After the initial splinters of pain subside, and the little shards of light stop dancing beneath my eyelids and my arms cease being numb, I realize that by rhythmically circling the tension point with her thumb, she’s making it shrink. 

I begin to sink into a deep, frothy lull.  She moves across my shoulders, pressing firmly.  It hurts a little, but in a good way.  I feel like warm milk is flowing through my veins. 

She works her way down to the middle of my back, pushes on a tender spot, and I erupt into uncontrollable laughter.  I am ticklish in exactly one place, and she’s found it. 

“Sorry,” I apologize, for both the laughter and the fact that the sheet has fallen on the floor and I’ve sat bolt upright, exposed like a streaker at a college football game.  I settle my face back into the padded ring and the master resumes her work.

She moves down to my feet.  She finds little knots of pain and tension and slowly rubs them out.  “This is your bladder point,” she says, pressing firmly on the inside of my foot near the heel. 

I inhale deeply, not so much because it hurts, but because pressing on that spot reminds me that I should have visited the restroom before my appointment.

She returns to my lower back, carefully avoiding my ticklish spot.  Once again I begin to drift.  Soon I am in a field of wildflowers, the sun is shining, the soft breeze cools my skin, and… what’s that?  Something is snorting.  It’s really irritating…

I am rudely awakened by a particularly obnoxious snoz and realize that it was me.  Snoring.  Loudly.  There is a puddle beneath the table, and my face is stuck to the padded ring with drool. 

The masseuse is telling me to make sure I drink lots of water, as she has released many toxins that must be flushed out.  Water?  Flushed?  Okay, this has been great and all, but where’s the bathroom? 

She floats out of the room, in all her unshakable calmness, and I cram myself back into my clothes. 

It isn’t until I’m driving towards home that I realize after five days of piercing pain, my headache is gone.  Halleluiah! 

I glance in the rearview mirror to see if I look refreshed.  My hair is greasy with massage oil, I have an “O” outlined around my face from the padded ring, and spit dried to my right cheek. 

Still think a massage isn’t for you?  My advice is, try it once with your clothes on.  If the masseuse doesn’t have you naked and drooling by the end of the hour, ask for your money back.

This article first appeared in the Lewistown News-Argus and the Sidney (Mont.) Herald on August 1, 2009.