Thai Massage

When in Thailand, do as the Thai. When you can’t knock-out anyone in Muy Thai boxing, and you’re too ugly to be a real LadyBoy, then do as the tourists. When you’re not old or creepy enough to hang out with young Thai women, do as the boring tourists. And that’s where my Thai massage story begins. Rest assured, this is a family-safe story, and there are no happy endings involved, literally or slangiatory.

Let me begin again. When I think of massage, I think of relaxation therapy. White noise in the background, comfy massage table with nose hole to stick my face in, maybe a little oil, maybe a little lotion, and bliss. About 30 seconds into my Thai massage, I realized two things: one, this was no massage I had ever experienced before, and two, I needed to focus on describing the sensations, partly out of pure entertainment value, partly to remove my consciousness from the pain being inflicted upon me. I believe they call this dissociative cognizance. Actually, they don’t, I made that up. But it’s the last lie you’ll read in this story.

Sure enough, things started well. In Thai massages, you hop into cool pajama things and that’s what I did. Note, this was the end of the cool parts associated with Thai massages.

So, I’m laying on the massage table on my back, and the masseuse steps up and without warning: BAM, my feet are being pushed down as hard as they possibly can, invoking my internal conversation to start with, “Are you trying to bind my feet, woman!” Ah, only a snippet of what was to come.

Next, legs start getting pushed and pulled in all directions. At one point, the masseuse pinned my right shoulder to the table, swung my right leg over my left, and pushed down on it as hard as she could. That was for my spine. That also crushed my privates. Thus I called this the “nut crusher” stretch. It was also at this point, about five minutes into the experience, that I realized I needed to take focus on everything, again to relay this information to you, but also to remain conscious.

Over the next twenty minutes, my legs and arms were stretched and poked in ways…ways that I’m ashamed to describe. I also realized that I had found a great answer to a public policy question that has come up in recent years. How can we remain a civilized nation, or world for that matter, if we continue to push the legal boundaries of torture? The answer sprang to my head, get rid of water boarding. It’s inhumane, it’s not right, it’s against the basic principles of humankind. Instead, let’s just send out prisoners of war to get Thai massages. We would be able to say, “hey, we treat our POWs with grace and thoughtfulness, we give them massages.” However, I guarantee we’d have POWs singing like canaries in just a matter of minutes with a Thai massage. Secretary of State, sign me up.

On to the next phase, which involved spine stretches. Imagine if you will, a person kneeling on your thighs as you lay on your stomach. They ask you to raise your arms to their outstretched hands. Grasping your wrists, they ask you to do the same. In this scenario, would you agree? Would you willingly do so? Well, I did, and then she pulled, oh did she pull. I kept thinking, “my spine bends forward, FORWARD, not backwards!” But it was pointless, after each yank, I was relieved, she couldn’t stretch it any further than that…I was wrong…five times.

As I lay there in as a puddled mass of bones and muscles, my lovely masseuse asked me to sit up. Maybe I was experiencing some Stockholm syndrome, cause I just kept agreeing to do whatever she asked. She told me to put my hands on my head, then interlock my fingers. Ha, we’re playing cops and robbers. Wait, why are you wrapping your arms under mine. Wait, you have me in a full-nelson. Wait, why are your knees digging into my back. Holy schnikes, you’re pulling and pushing at the same time, this is worse than a Carlito Backstabber. And he uses that pin his opponents! And it’s fake when he does it!! Holy crap please stop!! I would have sobbed if I could, but that would require breathing, which I stopped doing regularly for that last 15 minutes.

There was also the shoulder and neck portions. Usually the bread-and-butter of any massage, in Thai massage, I’ll call it the dessert. You know when you’re a kid and you’re really annoyed at your sibling or friend. And you just squeeze the holy hell out of their neck muscles. Like you pretend that you’re massaging them, then you unleash your best Vulcan never pinch and make them go cry to Mommy. Yeah, now imagine that for five minutes. I swear, for a small Thai woman, she had the grip of a goddamn vice.

Which just goes to show you can’t judge a lady by her size. When I was laying on my stomach, head neatly perched through the little breathing hole, my masseuse began the section on my back. One second, I’m trying to catch my breath from the “nut crusher”, the next thing I know, I can’t breathe at all. Oh wait I can…ughhhhh, no I can’t. There’s like a hundred pound weight on my back. Ah it’s gone. No it’s not! It’s moving up my back. Yup, she was standing on me, stepping up and down, like she’s frigging Gulliver’s Travels on my Lilliputian back. I think I started to do the slight moan thing, like, “…gah…gah…urgh..urghh” and she was asked, “Are you OK?” Ah, but there was no compassion, there was no concern. No no, she asked, “Are YOU ok…?” like she was questioning my manhood, the manhood she had already crushed to powder ten minutes ago.

Do I see the value in Thai massages? Yeah, if you do them regularly, I think you actually get yourself into shape. It’s like forced Yoga and muscle breakdown all rolled into one tiny masseuse package.

So, what can I say? By the end of the hour, I was literally sweating and panting. Then I gave my masseuse a $10 tip.