Asphyxiation would have been more comforting

Posted on May 25, 2010
Filed Under Daily, Life in L.A. | 11 Comments

Early last week, I woke up with an awful crick in my neck. The kind that, if it had a sound, would be a nails-against-chalkboard screech in an octave so high it would put Mariah Carey to shame. Every parent with a toddler just rolled their eyes at me for pretending I heard that sound when that’s the exact sound they hear EVERY TEN SECONDS.

Normally, I can stretch out a pain like that. Walk it off, or just push through, but it only got worse as the day progressed. The Mariah Note had lodged itself into the right side of the base of my neck, and released a tiny military of Pain Minions into my shoulder, down my arm, and into my elbow. When I lifted the duvet cover to make the bed, Misery shot through the entire right side of my body crashing into my knees, and collapsing me to the floor like I had just received news that there would be a marathon of Tyra broadcast for 24 hours on every channel for the next week.

I started looking forward to bedtime hoping another night’s sleep would undo what the previous night’s sleep did. My plan was to wake up with a giant stretch, smile, and the perfect shade of pink stained on my lips like in those Ambien commercials, but instead I woke up with the inability to turn my head to the right side. There’s a massage place just down the street from our apartment, so I called them to schedule a deep tissue at 11 a.m. sometime last week. Let me pause for a moment so I can say that I have two favorite girls that work at this place. One of them doesn’t do deep tissue, and the one that does apparently found another job. Damn those people who chase their dreams, and try to find employment that makes them happy elsewhere at my expense!

When I got there, I gave the receptionist my name, took a seat, and waited for the unknown therapist to come get me. And then, I saw SHIM. I had a bad feeling the minute I laid eyes on the woman (?) who I knew I was going to be stuck with.

Don’t call my name, don’t call my name, don’t call my name, don’t call…

“Sabrina?”

UGH, Dammit. I KNEW IT.

“Yeah,” I said. “Hi.”

“Hi, I’m Julie,” she said, extending her wrinkly, tattooed arm toward me. “It’s nice to meet you, come on back, second door on the right.”

I should have known from the strength of her handshake, which crushed my fingers bone-on-bone the way Brian Overend used to do to me in P.E. class during square dancing when we stood next to each other in the circle, that I shouldn’t have agreed to work with someone I hadn’t worked with before. That’s like going to a new hairdresser the day of your wedding, or asking a 5-year-old boy to paint your toenails while driving over a cobble-stone road. As I slipped under the covers on the massage table, a 2:1 ratio of discomfort and panic washed over me. But there was nothing I could do. I was stuck there, laying face-down, barely clothed, in a dimly-lit room waiting for a woman who looked like she could have done a Flying Clothesline from the top rope with ease.

She came in a few minutes later and asked me what she should focus on. I hesitantly told her my neck. As in, the ONE part of a person that controls their day-to-day functionality. She pressed around my back a little heavy-handed, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Then a little harder, and a little harder, and then SO HARD, my lower body spontaneously seizured, flinging my lower extremities out from under the covers and off the table.

“Op! I found your crick!” she said.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “Ha..uh..heh…mmm…there it is.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m going to start with a little Shiatsu.”

You guys, had I known that “Shiatsu” actually translated to “I’m going to press your face so hard into the face cradle WITH MY ELBOWS you’re going to look like a hippo trying to take a crap” I would have asked to use the restroom, and then RAN HOME. For the next one hour, I endured through the most grueling and torturous agony of my life.  And remember when I used that wrestling reference two ‘graphs ago? Well, the next thing I know, she does a Diving Shoulder Block right into my lower back with such brute force, my neck and ankles lifted off the table simultaneously.

And then, I heard the dreaded words, “Okay, time to turn over.”

I wanted to pretend like I didn’t hear, but S/HE wasn’t even using the standard gentle-masseuse voice, which could have easily been inaudible. It was more like a roar that sounded a lot like, TURN OVER OR I’LL CUT YOU.

“I’m going to work your clavicles in different directions,” she said.

I wasn’t sure what clavicles were, but I had heard of Happy-Ending spas thanks to Law & Order: SVU, so I was pretty sure that what she was offering went against my moral code. Just as I was about to be all, “No thanks, I’m Muslim,” she dug her thumbs into the flesh just under my collar bones, and started giving me an advanced version (as in, the version not allowed on the school playground) of an Indian Burn across my neck. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I accidentally shouted, “OH MY GOD!”

“If it’s any consolation to you,” she said. “This really hurts my thumbs.”

Well, when the pain eases up, please tell your thumbs to GIVE ME BACK MY CAROTID ARTERY.

When the whole thing ended, I walked home a little shakin’ up, but mostly thankful that I was still alive. For the next two days, I was more sore than before I entered The Chamber of Torture, but eventually, the burning in my clavicles minimized, and I was able to turn my head from side to side once again. I told The Boss all about the assault at the massage place, and for the next week, I slept in every day. I think that was my body’s way of healing itself from the trauma.

A few days ago, as The Boss and I crawled into bed, he told me he was feeling a little stressed, so I started rubbing his neck, and back, and then dug my knuckles into the base of his skull.

“Ah, no, stop!” he yelled. “You better not do any of that abusive stuff you learned the other day.”

“In that case,” I said, moving the ladder I dragged across the carpet, and taking off my fitted tights, and eye mask. “Let me start over.”

Comments

• February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011

• BlogHer.com Newlyweds Dish Twitter RSS