“Can I have the breast pillow?”
Typical question to ask. If you’re a chick. And if you’re walking into the back of Massage Envy while inquiring about supportive accessories that’ll make your lady accessories comfortable while laying down during your session (they aren’t huge, but I can’t relax the backs of my shoulders if my chesticles are vexed). A less typical reply? The one that followed, issued by my portly European dungeon mistress who was about to pulverize the meat in which I live while telling me how outta alignment I am. Upon my inquiry, she turns around, gazes down at my rack (admittedly encased in a less than flattering bra) and says, “Jur not so beeg!” before whirling back around, snatching one outta the cupboard anyway, and saying with a sigh, “But EEF eet’s more CAM-fore-ta-bull fore you, whee’ll do.”
I would’ve been offended if I hadn’t fallen in love with her already.
With that brusque manner and unintelligible accent (which was still better than mine in the only other language I know than English), she was like a novelty item in an antique shop you happen upon while driving cross country. And my fascination based affinity for her was only improved when she went on to explain that I needed to start using arnica oil (and something else I couldn’t understand but was delighted to blindly agree to buy offline anyway). I was drawn right in. I love that holistic shit. So you know I was hanging onto her every broken Englished word by the time she got halfway into recommending these Tibetan Monk exercises I should be doing every day to open my third eye (“Oh, superconsciousness? Why not!”) and tone my body parts (even though most Tibetan monks have the flabbiest arms I’ve ever seen). In between macerating my muscles – in a way that was the complete antithesis of what my regular guy Cesar does, with his trigger point releases and slow tranquil effleurage I suddenly missed – she explained how the Tibetan practice helped her following a divorce (or as she called it “when her husband moved”- a phrase which I’m still not sure whether to classify under denial, euphemism, or “lost in translation”). That was nice to hear – the tale of overcoming. And she was a lovely soul. But I always wonder when I see someone a bit overweight and a bit anxious delivering spiritual and physical-fitness advice, why they, ya know, stopped doing it when it worked so well. I’ve found there’s never a good way to deliver this inquiry. So I don’t. And I don’t recommend attempting it. Yet, I became open minded to – at the very least – looking up her recommendations and giving ’em the old college try. Especially when I, to my surprise, noticed that her violent technique was starting to yield peaceful results – like yelling at a dog, the more her fingers screamed into my flesh, the more my knots cowered and skulked away. Usually under this plan of attack, my body bites back. Not today.
(“I’d reply, but my vocal chords have been severed from the neck work you just did…”)
Ya know, I’ve always said “Do as I say; not as I do” doesn’t work. This tale may sound like an exception since the “sayer” is a hefty and nervous type. However, the “do” part is that she does magic, clearly. She did it on me and I totes wasn’t expecting it with her far-from-serene manner and UFC level technique. And if my biggest disappointment after trying what she’s suggested is that I end up with magic like she’s effing got frothing outta her fingertips, then that’s not a bad consolation prize to becoming superhuman. Maybe I can use this poor man’s sorcery when I finally become a PTA.
Because that massage was far from relaxing. And it def wasn’t what I’d requested.
But I did leave feeling like I’d been loaned the body of someone who takes better care of theirs than I do mine.
(Still, it would’ve sucked without the tit cushion.)