The Parlor

I Left With A Punch Card

As I get older, I find myself increasingly preferring the no-frills, walk-in massage place to my day spa.

Don’t get me wrong. There is a time and place for my bougie, self-care massage therapist. I still enjoy being tucked beneath a heated blanket while someone whispers, “Would you like eucalyptus or lavender?” But lately, I have become infatuated with the effects of this violence-adjacent form of massage.

The slapping, for instance.

The repeated thwap-thwap-thwap of cupped hands against my back does something for me on a soul level. I swear to God.

Apparently, at this stage of my life, I don’t want to be gently restored. I don’t want to “let go.” I want to be tenderized.

Admittedly, I’ve been in a funk lately. There’s been a heaviness lingering in my chest day after day as I watch Western civilization play out like an embarrassing episode of Jersey Shore from 2009. Everyone in power is either yelling, drunk, or soliciting sex workers. Nobody seems to understand consequences. And somehow we all have access to nuclear weapons.

I do yoga, therapy, meditation, journaling, nature walks, but eventually this flavor of shit storm stops being something I can philosophize about and starts taking up residence in my body.

Currently, mine has chosen to manifest as a giant knot wedged between my shoulder blades. The hot tub at the campground last weekend did nothing. And the chiropractor just wants to sell me supplements. So I’m off to Golden Lotus massage spa again.

I expected the knot might loosen a little. What I did not expect was that afterward, the fog in my chest would brighten too. This made absolutely no sense to me, so I did what I always do when I don’t like the Western medicine explanation for something: I called my best friend, who is an acupuncturist. She has grown accustomed to receiving completely obnoxious texts from me such as:

“What is the Chinese Medicine explanation for hemorrhoids?”

Her answer is usually that it is my liver’s fault. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the liver is associated with keeping qi moving smoothly and the freedom of emotions to flow, which is unfortunate because I suck at both.

But this time she surprised me.

“Lungs,” she said.

My lungs?

According to Chinese Medicine, the lungs are associated with grief. And considering I had just had the shit slapped out of my back like the time I was choking on an onion ring and Grandma didn’t know the Heimlich maneuver, her working theory was that Lan had somehow dislodged the collective grief I’d been storing in my lungs.

And ya know what? I’ll take it.

At this point, if you tell me my existential despair can be cured by an elderly Chinese woman repeatedly karate-chopping my rib cage, I am willing to explore that healing modality.

There is something about these massages that feels less like “self-care” and more like being put through a car wash for my humanity. At one point, while lying face down, I found myself lamenting: Why is she punching the bottoms of my feet? I’m sure there is an answer. But I don’t have a fucking clue what it is. Just like every other senseless, embarrassing current event marinating in my newsfeed. Embrace mystery, Lori.

There are no plush blankets here. No heated table. No weighted eye pillow infused with organic chamomile.

There is a bed sheet. But barely. I am 5'8", and the sheets here have been designed for either a baby crib or a small dining-room table. There are bolsters, though, which keeps things civilized. Also on the headrest, instead of one of those fitted hygienic face cradle covers, there is a paper towel. I’m pretty sure it is a brand-name paper towel, though, because it is surprisingly soft compared with the two-ply bed sheet.

At about the halfway point, they rub me down with wet, lukewarm towels that have clearly been washed 639 times, judging by their Brillo Pad texture. It is less like a towel absorbing moisture, and more like my entire body is a car receiving a paint exfoliation.

The ambiance is completed by a boombox playing what I can only assume is an instrumental piano CD purchased at the CVS across the street in 1998. The CD has one song.

One.

It is exactly 98 seconds long. I know this because it plays on repeat, and at some point, in an effort to prevent myself from going clinically insane, I began counting the seconds in my head.

One… two… three…

Ninety-seven.

Ninety-eight.

Piano starts again.

It feels like psychological warfare. And just when I think this is how governments break political prisoners, she drives her elbow into the exact spot beneath my shoulder blade that has been hurting for three weeks.

The knot gives way. Just a little. And suddenly the entire experience makes sense. This is the payoff.

Ninety-eight seconds of psychological resilience training. The paper towel. The wet sandpaper exfoliation. The foot punching. And then…

Physiological gratification.

I find this kind of massage strangely satisfying in a way that a luxurious massage simply can’t be. There is no illusion that anyone is trying to make me comfortable. Like the old fart I am now, I ruminate:
Kids these days… THIS is the kind of massage they should have to start with. Nobody should be allowed to begin life with warm stones, heated blankets, essential oils, and somebody gently ringing a Tibetan singing bowl beside their head.

You have to earn that shit.

First, you get the two-ply sheet. First, you listen to the same 98-second piano song 37 consecutive times. First, somebody unexpectedly punches the soles of your feet while you wish that you could ask whether you misunderstood the service you booked, but you can’t, because no one speaks the same language inside these four walls.

THEN you graduate to cucumber water.

At some point she folds my legs into a figure-four stretch and pushes my knee dramatically toward the side. My hoo-haa immediately falls out from beneath the two-ply bedsheet. I make a desperate attempt to gracefully tuck Miss Priscilla back in while simultaneously allowing my hip flexor to both stretch and preserve some microscopic shred of modesty.

This movement is unattainable. There is no dignified way to retrieve your Bajinga from underneath a paper-thin, baby crib sheet while a stranger has your left leg folded over your body like a pretzel. So I surrender.

Maybe that’s part of the therapy. I don’t value this experience because it’s about alleviating muscle tension; I value it because it’s about dismantling the illusion of control I have over my Earthly existence.

Here I am trying to manage my stress with yoga and therapy and long walks by the ocean; meanwhile, Golden Lotus has developed a much simpler treatment protocol:

Lie down. We will slap the grief out of you without your participation while CVS Piano Classics Volume II plays on an endless loop.

And honestly? When Lan threw open the window shade, blinding me with sunlight, and blurted, “OK, you go.” I did walk out feeling lighter. My shoulder blade wasn’t fixed, but it was a tiny bit better. The qi in my lungs was apparently flowing now. And my existential dread had decreased by at least 14 percent.

Anyways, I left with a punch card. Which I assume doubles as the service description. I can’t wait to find out what I get once it’s full.