#5 the massage

i like to think i'm a relatively comfortable person. i thought i was pretty good at handling potentially disastrous situations. you know those uncomfortable situations most people avoid like the plague. i've always been the kind of person who can at least pretend to be comfortable, crack a joke or two, and live through the experience just fine...sometimes even enjoy it. okay maybe that's stretching it a little too far but i'd at least live through it and get a good story from it. well i thought all of that...but i thought wrong. now maybe i'm alone in what i'm about to share...but i'm almost certain at least one other soul in this world has shared in this specific pain. and by pain i just mean our favorite word: awkward. so last week my dear friend and i were having a typical girls night...too much: hair, ice cream, laughs, and talking. it was then that we were both like man we need to do this more often...and while we're at it....we need a massage. we need to relax. blah. blah. blah. so we picked a day. which just so happened to be today. now i know i've had a massage before, but now that i get to thinking about it, it's always been by people i've known. just a little bit at least. but like i said, potentially uncomfortable situations don't seem to phase me so i didn't think anything of the fact that my friend was finding a spa, making and appointment, and i'd be showing up and throwing myself it to what i consider right now as maximum awkward. like always i was running late. this particular place happened to be in the basement of a house which was weird. i hate that moment of "okay...where do i park? where is the door? do i just go in? this feels weird..." but it was fine. i could see my friend's car but she wasn't in it so i figured she had headed inside. so i just go in. considering it is a basement it has a desk and looks pretty professional. there are two ladies sitting at the desk. i say hi. they have me start filling out papers. my friend is no where in sight. i then get a text from her that says something like "they already took me back, i'll see you when we're done" so i'm like alright cool. hand the lady the papers. she says "i'll be working on you today..." i say "awesome..." she says "ummm...what?" while giving me a weird look. i say "umm...coool...." this is already weird. did i mention she was just kind of weird in general. poofy hair. insanely skinny. not judging, just assessing. so she takes me back into this room. right off i notice that there are lots of little pine trees with lights...christmas? and nickleback is playing along with a little waterfall thing. strange, but whatever. so i'm like well...here we go...and she tells me "it's typically best if you are totally naked....but if you want to keep some of your underwear on that's cool too...and just lay face down on top of that sheet when you're done changing..." kind of confused i'm like "on top?..." and she says yeah and leaves. alright...this is weird so for a second i'm thinking...i've been in awkward naked situations. nothing says awkward like getting an airbrush tan in the nude...standing there...butt naked...arms out...having someone airbrush you with freezing liquid/air to hopefully make your blinding skin a little darker. i've had bikini waxes. another awkward near naked experience. but something about laying butt naked on top of this table with my face squished in a little pillow with a hole in the middle was not sounding bearable. so i make the decision to leave underwear on the bottom. so i'm laying on table, face down...rather cold and extremely uncomfortable thinking this is so weird. and oh it was just starting. she starts to walk in screams a little, mostly shuts the door and is like "ah! get in that sheet!!!!" so i'm freaking out and like "ahh!!! getting in the sheet! getting in the sheet!" AWKWARD! with a capital a. and she hasn't even rubbing my mostly naked body! so she comes back in and for the first time in the last ten minutes, and probably my whole life, i am loving that fact that my face is securely hidden in a weird little pillow with an air hole that reeks of lavender. so as she starts massaging me she also starts making awkward conversation. "so....what do you do for work...how long have you been doing hair...how do you know your friend.."which is fine but then she starts getting weird like talking about how she always massages big guys so it's weird because her hand can take up my whole back and other things that are just weird, obvious, and i don't really care to hear. " i was so ready to say "hey listen lady...not only did you just make me freak out and feel humiliated while laying all but totally naked and rather cold with my face squished in this smelly pillow, i'm pretty sure on your little evaluation i said that i came here to relax. not to listen to you ramble. so stop talking." but i didn't. mostly because it was awkward enough and if she could get the massive knots out of my back she could probably kill me as well. after a few minutes she stops talking and in the silence i start thinking. too much. "oh crap...when was the last time you shaved your legs? what if there is lint in your toes?" then she starts doing these weird little techniques that tickle so bad it's taking everything in me not to start laughing. there are two things i often forget about myself: 1-i am super claustrophobic. 2-i may or may not be the most ticklish person ever born. then once i'm in a little box or being tickled i instantly remember and hate my life for a minute or two. so after feeling like i'm being carefully tickle tortured for a few minutes she starts moving my legs around and it makes a really loud "fart noise" is this going to end?! did i mention she has all kinds of weird music playing....we went from some kind tune you'd probably irish dance to, back to nickelback, then to some crappy 90s rock, back to weird flutes and bagpipes. then she says "okay now i'm going to have you scoot down so your head is on the table and roll over onto your back..." so i do it but i'm thinking "oh dear...what are you going to rub on the front of me...." lucky for me she just starts working on my my neck/shoulders just at a different angle. but then she starts rubbing my face. i have given and received lots of facials in my lifetime, thanks to cosmetology school, but i never got over how weird it is to rub someones face/have your own face rubbed. i always had the urge to start squishing their cheeks together while saying "my name is chubby..." or just laugh on either end of things. the first facial i ever gave was to a girl who had a bit of an acne problem and the entire time was like a careful act of tip toeing around a land mine, while praying "oh please don't let me accidentally pop one of these zits...oh please don't let me pop one of these zits...i've stomached a lot but i will throw up on this girls face if her zit pops on me..." that was terrible. but this time i thinking "i am so congested right now i can't breath out of my nose and breathing with my mouth open while my face is being squished around is not so comfortable..." that's all i can think about. until she starts poking her fingers in my ears. you heard me right. in my ears. back to self conscious mode i'm thinking "ew...disgusting...i hope you don't get any wax on you!..." then she starts pulling on them and squishing them around. at this point i'm like this needs to end now. i didn't ask for an ear massage. i told you i wanted to relax and maybe get some help relieving the tension headache i've had for awhile. and then i am saved. she says "alright. that's it." had i been wearing more clothes i probably would've jumped up and yelled "hallelujah!" but for her sake and my own, i didn't. i get my clothes on. feeling rather dizzy from breathing in too much lavender, and not being able to see very well thanks to having my eyes closed with contacts in for too long. i go out of the room. still feeling dizzy. the seeing is doing worse than before. by the time i get down the hall and back to the desk my right eye is losing it. it being my contact. literally. as i'm half crawling around looking for my contact i catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror with the eye that is working and my hair looks like something along the lines of "a monkeys uncle.." so my mom would put it. so here i am crawling around finding my contact with a big rat nest on top of my head...not to mention my makeup had been rubbed off and all of my lovely acne is showing and as i'm searching i think "geeze the only thing that would complete this moment is if i'd forgotten to put my pants back on!..." then i hurry and check because i know me and i know nothing is impossible. once i successfully get the contact in my eye and attempt to smooth down the mop i look around and realize my friend is not there. and the two ladies have been watching the freak show the whole time. she finally comes out. the lady is awkward like the rest of the experience as we pay and then we head out. as we're leaving my friends says..." my girl was super awesome...but that other lady was pretty weird..." my response: "you have no idea dude...no idea."

for the record parts of the massage were very nice. my headache did feel better.

also for the record i had remember to put my pants on. :)

awkward.