Every time I hear someone say, “I’ve never had a massage”, I look at them like they have three heads.  Or like they’re speaking in Japanese.  It’s just a foreign concept to me.

I’m a massage junkie.  Ask anyone.

Ever since I got my first rubdown, I was addicted … and subsequently spoiled.  Now my friends are well aware that gift certificates for massages are the perfect gift card to give me.  60 minutes of being kneaded like pizza dough?   Sheer euphoria. 

 Once when I sitting at a stoplight, a woman rear-ended my car and clocked me in a telephone poll.  I wasn’t able to negotiate pain and suffering with the insurance company, but I did get weekly massages for about two months.  It was bliss.  (Uh, the massages … not the collision.)  I’d recommend it to anyone.  (Again, the massages, not getting rear ended.)

The first massage I ever had was from a gal named Judy Hand.  Yes, that’s her real, God-given name.  I don’t remember much about it save for the fact that I left a small puddle of drool on the floor.  Judy said I fell asleep four minutes in to the massage.  Happens. 

For a brief while, our ad agency was attached to a massage therapy school.  I would get done with work and walk 22 feet to get an hour-long massage for $20. Oh, those were the days.  There’s absolutely nothing better than that weird, Zen, floating sensation you get after having a massage.  Oh wait, I take that back … the only thing better is when you only pay $20 for it.

I’ll be walking through a mall or airport and see those massage kiosks set up.  I don’t care if I’m running late or in the middle of a shoot, I’ll always stop for a 15-minute neck/shoulder massage.  Seems I hold a lot of tension in those two places.  Sad, because I’m typically not a stressed out individual.

I even took four semesters of massage therapy in college.  I got to be pretty good at it too.  I’d like to think of myself as an amateur massage therapist wannabe.  I probably would have chosen it as my career path until I realized that I wanted nothing to do with wildly unattractive people.  Does that make me a bad person?  Probably.  In fact, it makes me feel bad … which, in turn, stresses me out.

Did I say stressed out?  Oops, looks like it’s time for another massage.