WSUCougar
02-07-2006, 04:21 PM
This is worth some laughs...
By Bob Rybarczyk
STLtoday.com columnist
02/07/06
I’ll admit, I was pretty darned excited when I heard that my employer was going to be offering us free massages. The e-mail announcing the free massages explained why we were getting them, but I pretty much blew past the whole “why” part. All I cared about was that I was going to get a free 15-minute chair massage at work. Sweet.
A 15-minute chair massage isn’t the same as an hour-long couples massage in the Bahamas, but it’s a heck of a lot better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. I’d gotten a chair massage before and totally dug it. So I was really looking forward to my next one.
Because I had a whole bunch of meetings scheduled for that day, I signed up for the first session, at 9 a.m. sharp. I was really looking forward to starting my day off on the right foot. I wondered if the masseuse would be as talkative as the one who gave me my last chair massage. I don’t like talkative masseuses. Talkative masseuses are like porn movies; the less talking, the better.
A few minutes after 9 a.m., one of my coworkers ducked her head into my office and said the masseuse was ready for me in the conference room.
Massage, baby! Woo-hoo!
The moment I walked into the conference room, my woo-hoo suddenly went-hent. The masseuse was…well, he was…a guy.
OK, but you’re not getting my phone number after this
The masseuse was a guy.
A guy?
Oh. Um…a guy?
OK, I thought. There’s nothing wrong with getting a massage from a guy. Lots of masseuses are guys, right? Guys get massages from other guys all the time. He’s a professional. It’s like going to the doctor. My doctor’s a guy, and he gets an awful lot more personal than any masseuse ever will. Then again, I’ve turned and coughed for male doctors all my life. I’ve only ever gotten massages from women. And, until that moment, I didn’t realize just how much I preferred getting massages from women.
“How you doing?” the masseuse said, extending a muscular arm toward me to shake my hand. “I’m Mitch. I’ll be your masseuse today.”
I don’t know if his name was Mitch. I can’t remember what his name was. Or maybe I blocked it out. I don’t know. Anyway, for the sake of needing a name, I’ll assume it was something like Mitch.
“I’m good,” I said with the enthusiasm of a supermodel stuck at a Star Trek convention. I told myself that I was being silly. It’s just a massage, not a re-enactment of “Boys Will Be Boys, Part 7.” I got into the chair – one of those goofy massage chairs that make you rest your face on what appears to be a well-padded toilet seat – and tried to relax.
Mitch started by rubbing my shoulders and chit-chatting a bit. We talked about the weather. He complimented me on how much he liked the design of our office space. I thanked him, as if I had anything to do with it.
Mitch’s hands moved up to the back of my neck, above the collar of my sweater. For the first time in, well, ever, a man’s hands were massaging my neck. I tried not to think about it too much. I tried to relax. But then I realized that what he was doing didn’t exactly feel good. Mitch was pressing his fingers pretty hard against my neck. It felt like he was scraping my neck with his fingers. I figured I should ask him to put some lotion on his hands.
I started to speak, but then stopped in my tracks. I realized that I had very nearly asked a man to use lotion on me.
I resisted the urge to shriek.
I suffered through the man-hand neck-scraping and managed to survive without the benefit of (shudder) lotion. Then Mitch went to work on my shoulders. He pressed hard enough that I started to wonder if he was trying to force my shoulder blades out through my nostrils. My back started making popping noises.
“You hear that?” Mitch asked. “You have a lot of stuff stuck together in there.”
Yeah, I thought. It’s called bone and muscle. Silly me, I was under the impression they were supposed to be connected.
Mitch was pushing so hard that he was starting to grunt. A grown man was standing behind me and grunting. Seriously.
I could almost hear the Kelly Clarkson music
Even though it hurt, I have to admit, what he was doing was starting to feel good. The parts he worked on felt very relaxed after he was done with them. I realized that he was actually pretty good. I was feeling proud of myself. I wasn’t acting like some loser who gets hung up on homophobic tendencies. I was being a progressive-thinking, confident-in-his-masculinity kind of guy.
Then the masseuse came around in front of me, pulled my left arm straight, bent my hand up, and intertwined the first two fingers on both of his hands with the fingers on my left hand.
My fingers were intertwined with another dude’s fingers.
Somehow that moment was way worse than the lotion moment and the grunting. My doctor may ask me to turn my head and cough, but he doesn’t get all “I wish I knew how to quit you” on me, either.
I reminded myself that I’m a liberated guy. That I have many gay friends, even gay family members. And it’s not like I thought the masseuse was gay. I had nothing to be uncomfortable about. Right?
Right?
I breathed deeply and just let the man work. Despite my discomfort, the massage was good. To my surprise, I felt very good by the time he was done working me over.
Good lord. Did I really just say that?
I need a beer.
Bob Rybarczyk writes stuff. He washes and rinses but never repeats.
By Bob Rybarczyk
STLtoday.com columnist
02/07/06
I’ll admit, I was pretty darned excited when I heard that my employer was going to be offering us free massages. The e-mail announcing the free massages explained why we were getting them, but I pretty much blew past the whole “why” part. All I cared about was that I was going to get a free 15-minute chair massage at work. Sweet.
A 15-minute chair massage isn’t the same as an hour-long couples massage in the Bahamas, but it’s a heck of a lot better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. I’d gotten a chair massage before and totally dug it. So I was really looking forward to my next one.
Because I had a whole bunch of meetings scheduled for that day, I signed up for the first session, at 9 a.m. sharp. I was really looking forward to starting my day off on the right foot. I wondered if the masseuse would be as talkative as the one who gave me my last chair massage. I don’t like talkative masseuses. Talkative masseuses are like porn movies; the less talking, the better.
A few minutes after 9 a.m., one of my coworkers ducked her head into my office and said the masseuse was ready for me in the conference room.
Massage, baby! Woo-hoo!
The moment I walked into the conference room, my woo-hoo suddenly went-hent. The masseuse was…well, he was…a guy.
OK, but you’re not getting my phone number after this
The masseuse was a guy.
A guy?
Oh. Um…a guy?
OK, I thought. There’s nothing wrong with getting a massage from a guy. Lots of masseuses are guys, right? Guys get massages from other guys all the time. He’s a professional. It’s like going to the doctor. My doctor’s a guy, and he gets an awful lot more personal than any masseuse ever will. Then again, I’ve turned and coughed for male doctors all my life. I’ve only ever gotten massages from women. And, until that moment, I didn’t realize just how much I preferred getting massages from women.
“How you doing?” the masseuse said, extending a muscular arm toward me to shake my hand. “I’m Mitch. I’ll be your masseuse today.”
I don’t know if his name was Mitch. I can’t remember what his name was. Or maybe I blocked it out. I don’t know. Anyway, for the sake of needing a name, I’ll assume it was something like Mitch.
“I’m good,” I said with the enthusiasm of a supermodel stuck at a Star Trek convention. I told myself that I was being silly. It’s just a massage, not a re-enactment of “Boys Will Be Boys, Part 7.” I got into the chair – one of those goofy massage chairs that make you rest your face on what appears to be a well-padded toilet seat – and tried to relax.
Mitch started by rubbing my shoulders and chit-chatting a bit. We talked about the weather. He complimented me on how much he liked the design of our office space. I thanked him, as if I had anything to do with it.
Mitch’s hands moved up to the back of my neck, above the collar of my sweater. For the first time in, well, ever, a man’s hands were massaging my neck. I tried not to think about it too much. I tried to relax. But then I realized that what he was doing didn’t exactly feel good. Mitch was pressing his fingers pretty hard against my neck. It felt like he was scraping my neck with his fingers. I figured I should ask him to put some lotion on his hands.
I started to speak, but then stopped in my tracks. I realized that I had very nearly asked a man to use lotion on me.
I resisted the urge to shriek.
I suffered through the man-hand neck-scraping and managed to survive without the benefit of (shudder) lotion. Then Mitch went to work on my shoulders. He pressed hard enough that I started to wonder if he was trying to force my shoulder blades out through my nostrils. My back started making popping noises.
“You hear that?” Mitch asked. “You have a lot of stuff stuck together in there.”
Yeah, I thought. It’s called bone and muscle. Silly me, I was under the impression they were supposed to be connected.
Mitch was pushing so hard that he was starting to grunt. A grown man was standing behind me and grunting. Seriously.
I could almost hear the Kelly Clarkson music
Even though it hurt, I have to admit, what he was doing was starting to feel good. The parts he worked on felt very relaxed after he was done with them. I realized that he was actually pretty good. I was feeling proud of myself. I wasn’t acting like some loser who gets hung up on homophobic tendencies. I was being a progressive-thinking, confident-in-his-masculinity kind of guy.
Then the masseuse came around in front of me, pulled my left arm straight, bent my hand up, and intertwined the first two fingers on both of his hands with the fingers on my left hand.
My fingers were intertwined with another dude’s fingers.
Somehow that moment was way worse than the lotion moment and the grunting. My doctor may ask me to turn my head and cough, but he doesn’t get all “I wish I knew how to quit you” on me, either.
I reminded myself that I’m a liberated guy. That I have many gay friends, even gay family members. And it’s not like I thought the masseuse was gay. I had nothing to be uncomfortable about. Right?
Right?
I breathed deeply and just let the man work. Despite my discomfort, the massage was good. To my surprise, I felt very good by the time he was done working me over.
Good lord. Did I really just say that?
I need a beer.
Bob Rybarczyk writes stuff. He washes and rinses but never repeats.