Vignettes from the Spa

Even though I blogged about Valentine's Day weekend and how crazy-busy I was, I got sidetracked recounting the horrendous drive home on Saturday night and completely spaced mentioning how Friday the Thirteenth kinda fucked me over! OH, NOES...we cannot have that! So I must share the stories with you!

I'm not superstitious at all (discounting my belief in Tip Karma), but I swear Ft13 was out to get me.
I dropped shit. I broke shit. I made messes everywhere.

For example, I was hustling to grab a bite to eat between clients (because of course we were slammed and I was starving), and while I attempted to snag a piece of apple out of the fridge, I knocked my coworker's tupperware container of yogurt and chia onto the floor. Where the lid popped off and half of the yogurt spilled. So not only did I waste half of her food, I was late getting my next client because I had to clean up the mess!

My massage gel bottle tipped over in the microwave where I was heating it up. Mess, late. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I was pulling paper towels out of the dispenser, and the cover ripped off the wall.

See what I'm getting at?

Then you add in the clients and you get a recipe for more shenanigans. One lady was menstruating and sprang a leak. Those sheets got tossed, we didn't bother dealing with them except to bag 'em and toss them in the trash. On a slow day we probably would have washed them separately with bleach, but with Valentine's Day weekend madness, the laundry was already piling up and we were hard pressed to keep up with the wash-dry-fold-restock cycle.

Finally, my last massage of the day was another couple's massage. 90-minute Deep Tissue on a big guy who was sore from all the snow removal he had been doing for work, pretty much working seven days a week for the past month or so. He and his lady were taking a much-needed break. I killed myself working on him for 90 minutes, and my colleague and I were waiting for the couple right outside the room with water when they emerged, blinking sleepily. I was slightly skeeved but hopeful when he lowered his voice confidingly and confessed to having "left something on the 'bed'" for us.

Sigh

First of all, it's a FUCKING MASSAGE TABLE, not a bed. For the millionth time.

Second, leaving me cash on the rumpled sheets makes me feel like a whore.

Third and Last, leaving me only TEN DOLLARS for a kick-ass, 90-minute super-deep tissue massage makes me feel like a CHEAP whore.

Not a feeling I relish, believe me. Although, making my coworkers laugh uproariously when I explained my reasoning to them made it ALMOST worth it...

Have I mentioned how shitty the roads are? I mean, considering what Mass residents pay in taxes, you'd think the roads would be better maintained. Not so much.

One of the main routes I take during my commute is truly a nightmare. Frost heaves and GIGANTIC potholes make for an interesting drive. It's much worse of course when I'm driving home at night and the visibility is poor. Then I curse in counterpoint to the ker-THUNK of driving into a pothole I saw too late to dodge.

In other news, I have dubbed a new client "Tiny Dancer", because she truly is. She's so small and slight, the hot towel I put on her back is too big. A hand towel. Her back is so narrow, the edges of the towel brush the sheet on the table. And she's so petite (aka SHORT) that I have to fold the bottom of the towel over so it's not too long for her back. Unbelievable. Oh, and she is a dancer, so the nickname really fits. What's even more unbelievable is that I had to do such deep tissue on her that I swear I could hear her ribs creaking, and I think I bruised my ulna on her shoulder blades. Wicked high pain tolerance.

The variety and diversity (or are those the same?) of the human body never cease to amaze me. We all have basically the same parts, but we're all different, sometimes radically. That's one of the reasons massage will never bore me. The other reason is that massage provides blog fodder, so we all win!