MALL MASSAGE

I walked into the house, my hair in disarray, my clothes disheveled. “Well, that was a bad idea.” I said as I tossed my purse on the chair and went to get the heating pad from the linen closet.

My son Alex was coming out of his room. “What did you do?” he asked as he followed me to the living room as I held the heating pad in one hand and let the power cord drag on the ground behind me.

I yelped as I leaned over to plug it in. “Oh man. I need to get some heat on my neck and arm right now!” I eased my way into the chair and placed the still cold heating pad against my neck.

“What happened?” Alex asked as he sat across from me on the couch.

“You know the neck and arm pain I’ve been having lately?”

Alex nodded his head. “Yeah. It’s been about two weeks already. Didn’t it happen when you moved the porch furniture when Dad told you to wait for him to do it for you?”

I stared at him for a good five seconds before saying, “Do you really want to talk about that?”

Alex shook his head. “Nope, I guess not.”

I could start to feel the heat coming from the pad and adjusted it on my neck. Wincing as I shifted the pad. “Well, I thought it would be a good idea to get a massage. Maybe that would fix everything.” I began stretching my neck. “I Googled which place gave the best massage and the one at the Mall got the best reviews.”

Alex looked confused. “You mean the one where the massage chairs are lined up along the window like you’re on display?”

“Yup. That’s the one.” I continued stretching my neck in a different direction. “Clearly I made a mistake.”

“Were you in one of the window chairs?”

I shook my head. “No, I got to go in the back and use a table.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I mean you could still see me but I wasn’t on display.” I clicked the button to put the heating pad on a higher setting.

“So what happened?”

“I asked for a 30 minute deep tissue massage.” I began shaking my head feeling like I was reliving the entire event. “I felt like I was in a cage match when she began digging her elbow into my shoulder blade. Only I wasn’t fighting back!” I looked at my arm to see if the bruising had started yet. “I just laid there like a slug and took it.”

“Why didn’t you ask her to stop.” Alex said. “Or at least ask her to lighten up?”

“I kept thinking, ‘no pain, no gain’.” I began twisting my neck to see if it was beginning to loosen up. “Boy, was that a mistake!”

“You let her do that to you for 30 minutes?”

“Yup!” I tried twisting my back. “I feel like a complete idiot right now.”

“Hey, you didn’t know.” Alex reasoned then started to laugh. “But maybe the next time you go you can come up with a safe word to use that will make her stop?”

“There’s not going to be a next time for that!” I said as I adjusted the heating pad one more time. “I’m calling my chiropractor in the morning.”

“Sounds like a good idea.” Alex said as he got up from the couch. “Maybe next time start with the chiropractor?”

I nodded my head as I began to feel the heat was making it feel better. “Live and learn.” I sighed.