My Massage

Today I used a gift card I received for a massage the last time I was pregnant, two years ago. (Thanks, Jeremy! It was the birthday gift that kept on giving!) I don't know why it took me so long to use it; I think I feel that it's such a treat that I ought to have a real reason to go, like major pain or something.

Well, the other night, I was up for three hours in the middle of the night with the worst headache. The headache basically lasted for 24 hours and felt like it was radiating outward from a knot in my shoulder, so I went and dug around for the gift card and made an appointment. I figured a knot that's causing a big old headache is worth cashing that baby in for.

My massage was scheduled for today, and I just found some aspects of my experience funny or noteworthy, or at least blogworthy:

1. They basically have you sign your life away, especially if you're pregnant. You agree that you won't sue them if something happens to you, that you won't sue them if something happens to your baby, and you won't sue them if something is stolen from you. You promise you don't have any high blood pressure, high blood sugar or protein, that your pregnancy is normal, and about 15 other things. It's a little disconcerting to have to read through like five pages of legal stuff, thinking about all the things that you now know could go wrong, but I figured that, overall, a massage is a pretty low-risk activity.
2. You can indicate on your paperwork the areas you would like them to work on and the areas where you'd like to do without a massage. One of the options was "head and face." I was like, "What do they do to your head and face, really?" One time, when I was just out of college, I had a massage where the lady did massage my face a little bit, and, frankly, I felt annoyed that she was massaging me there when obviously I had major knots in my shoulders I'd rather she spent her time on, but today I decided to just go with it and see what happened. Anyway, I just was not prepared for the woman today to do this kind of involved massage on my head that involved her running her fingers through my hair. I'm sorry, but that is just not my thing. Partly because I'm just not used to strangers touching my head, but mainly because the whole time I'm inwardly cringing about how I just fixed my hair. The thing about curly hair is that you do NOT run your fingers through it. It makes it frizzy and it straightens out the curls, both of which are things that you obviously strive to avoid. Plus, her fingers had lotion on them. Lotiony fingers being run through curly hair does not make for a subsequently good hair day.
   
3. The second thing about the face massage that nearly made me laugh out loud was the fact that I got like a two-minute ear massage on each side. I mean, besides the fact that someone is massaging your ear of all things, how long can you really massage an ear? I mean, what is there to do with an ear? There aren't any muscles in your ear. There's probably very little circulation there. What is the benefit of a massaged ear? I just couldn't figure it out, and it seemed so strange to me that it was cracking me up inside. So for the whole head and face portion of the massage, I went between inwardly cringing and inwardly giggling. I think I will opt out of the "head and face" option next time.
   

The rest of the massage was very nice, and I enjoyed it. It's nice to just lie there for a little while, for one thing. Plus, I could tell that the girl I got knew what she was doing, and she knew where to focus to ease some tension, so that was nice. Overall, it was a good experience. I just thought there were some aspects of it that were funny. :)