What was the name of that truck?

You know, the one that hit both me and The Husband? Oh wait. That was our massage therapist.


Now don't get me wrong, I love my massage therapist. She is a goddess at whose hands we worship. But damn. What in the hell did The Husband and I do to ourselves that she had to beat us up that badly? I mean, I can hardly get up or down it hurts so much. Ow.

Massages and other kinds of pampering have been mentioned lately on the WLS blog-o-sphere it seems. Sassy Fatty Sister Jen talks about it here and Alison talks about it here. And it's something that I think many of those of us who are overweight routinely deny ourselves. I can't count how many of my overweight friends get self-conscious when the thought of getting something like a massage or *gasp* a bikini wax crosses their mind.

Getting something like a manicure or a pedicure is something that seems to be exempt from this realm of shame, at least in my circle of real life friends. That's no big deal. It's just legs and arms But to bare any amount of flesh in the torso? Um, that would be a big no. We're just too fat.

It's all part of the cycle of shame of being fat it seems to me. I know that I would have never considered getting a massage unless The Husband had suggested it to me. The thought never crossed my mind. Get naked so that someone other than him can touch me all over? Well, almost all over? Get out of here! Who would consent to that?

And to add to that, when you do go to one of those high-falutin' spas, oftentimes they don't have robes that even cover half of our flesh. It's as if they deliberately make it embarassing for us. What, you can't fit in our plush, luxurious robes? Get out of here, you plebian! You're not good enough for us.

You would think that seeing as how more and more of Americans are getting larger and larger, they would WANT to cater to those of us of larger than average size. Heck, some of the robes I tried on in these spas wouldn't fit a size 14. What in the world are they thinking?

It's not that I want special consideration for people of size. It's just that if you are offering a service that does not specify a weight limit, then damn it why can't you accommodate the whole spectrum of people? It costs probably $5-10 more each to get a bigger size robe. Invest in a few, why don'tcha? Maybe then you'll have more customers and *gasp* make more money, ya think?

Massage therapy has become a godsend to both The Husband and me. He suffers from bad knees that we are eventually going to have to replace at some point in time, as well as has a rib that chronically pops out of place due to things he used to do in the Navy. My sacrum is determined to separate from my body and become its own country, thanks to an injury back in elementary school where I decided not to run the full length of the long jump track, jumping early and thereby landing on the wooden edge of the sand pit with my tail bone. Chiropractics takes care of putting the bones back into place, but it is up to our goddess of the muscles to convince our wayward ones into letting the bones stay in place and make the rest of us feel better.

So every two weeks, we make our way to our appointments with her. And while it may hurt for a little while, eventually we feel good enough to deal with life for a while instead of staying curled up in bed popping pills - which is where we both were on occasion before her.

Who knew pain could be such a good thing?