A few months ago, I bought a massage voucher from Scoopon – a site that sells cheap goods/services in exchange for peace of mind and a loss of dignity upon redemption. You have to be savvy – sellers do their own valuations, so they can put $450 RRP on a bar of soap, or give their soup kitchen 3 Michelin stars.
I got a sweet deal last time though, it was a one hour massage for $29 with a reputable massage place in Kalamunda and considering standard price now is around $100 p/hr, you’d think I’d be laughing, right?
Wrong. I was crying, because my ex-Guantanamo masseuse unleashed a can of whoopass that’s had me walking funny for a week. My issue is that I can’t find a massage that’s harder than Swedish and softer than remedial. Remedial’s like a modern day equivalent of the rack or some other form of medieval torture, and Swedish is just someone running a piece of lettuce up and down your back and occasionally patting you to let you know they haven’t left the room. At the end, they tell you they’ve got rid of a heap of toxins which makes what they’ve done sound vaguely medical and justifies the exorbitant fees.
Since I was all Swedished out and had possibly forgotten what pain felt like, I went remedial and said – only half joking – to the lady that I could take anything. She said ‘we’ll see about that’ which really annoyed me because it was a condescending threat, and they’re the worst kind.
I went fine on the legs – it was painful, but I could take it. Then she did some form of chinese burn on my back where she shifted skin around in opposite directions, and dug her fingers in where she’d just been. She said ‘and how’s that love’ – and I said ‘it’s great, but I thought you’d said it was going to be hard.’ No I didn’t – that would have been tantamount to suicide. At one point I thought, this woman’s going to kill me because one of her moves was just to kind of lean on me until I couldn’t breathe.
Long story short, I did break down and she rewarded me with some gentle strokes, and massaged my flanks like I was Phar Lap and I’d just done a very long, very painful, race. I thought she was going to put some oats out for me underneath the head hole and braid my hair.
At least my skin had a festive red glow! Merry Christmas one and all! xx
megsjessie 
Megs, you are HILARIOUS. What are you doing studying the conventions of comedy when you are already a natural comedian? You should be ON STAGE!! I have read all your blogs this afternoon (coz that’s how I roll – the kids can make their own freakin’ afternoon tea, do their homework, workshop their own bullying sitch) and laughed and laughed. And laughed. I feel so guilty now for boring you with my asylum seeker rant today. I have no doubt you walked out of that absurd architecture room today, crossed yourself several times and swore “Why me? Why me with the weird journo students? Which way’s the Tav?”. And I completely understand. You are funny, Megs. You are WAY funny. Don’t lose yourself in academia. By all means study but stay funny at the same time, keep writing, produce material, and don’t ever change. Lovely to meet you.
THANKS CARRIE!!!! I can’t believe you’ve read them already. It always makes me feel great when people like them, so cheers! I certainly did NOT think ‘I’m stuck next to the weird journo student!’ (although your description was amusing.) If anything, I thought how nice it is that people are doing things that will actually make a difference. Was lovely to meet you too – glad I’ve found a kindred spirit this early on!
And that building IS weird.
Re-read this today after a particularly brutal deep tissue massage yesterday. Wasn’t walking funny at all when I went in … came out limping. Cruel-and-unusual (self-inflicted) punishment?
no one to blame but yourself vero…