I've tried. No,
really I have. I've tried deep breathing
exercises, I've tried thinking of other things, I've even tried imagining
myself not actually being me. It's always a momentous failure. There is one absolute truth in my life:
I don't like strange
people touching me.
I've tried to have a mini-massage, but the woman got
frustrated as soon as she started, working away at my shoulders with the force
of a WWE wrestler. I couldn't understand
the problem until, exasperated beyond her limit, she barked at me, "Relax
your shoulders!"
I barked right back at her, "They are relaxed! Lady, this is
as relaxed as I get."
Fail.
When I had foot surgery, the first consultation went
badly. The x-rays were fine; I had no
problem with that, but then the podiatrist touched my foot and all hell broke
loose. The one place I despise being
touched amongst all else would be my feet.
Either foot, doesn't matter. Don't freakin' mess with my feet. I've cut them, broken them, snapped
almost every one of my toes at one time or another, stepped on nails with them,
and I practically severed my left heel.
They've suffered enough, so move along, people, because there's nothing
to see here and certainly nothing to touch.
The surgery went fine because I was unconscious through it,
but the recovery -- not so smooth. When
the stitches came out, the doc tried to shoot my foot with novocaine until I
damn near ripped the needle out of his fist.
"Just pull the damn things out," I insisted. "I'll try to hold still." I only flinched a few times, but mostly it
was because the incision itself made me queasy.
"You have a high tolerance for pain," he said
after he finished. Coincidentally, this
is the same man who yelled at me weeks later when I insisted that I could feel
him sawing off the cast. "You can't
feel that," he assured me, "it's impossible."
Bullshit, Dr. Bombay,
I sure as shit can feel it. My leg
jumped involuntarily so many times the guy nearly sawed off my kneecap.
Fail.
And then there's the mani-pedi. I'd never had a manicure before. Somebody tried it on me once, and as soon as
she pushed back my cuticles, I was out of the chair. I don't know what in the hell she thought she
was trying to do or where she thought those cuticles were going to go, but under the pads of my fingernails was
clearly not the correct answer. So when
I went for my first official mani-pedi a few weeks ago, I knew what I was in
for: A stranger was going to be touching
me.
I had to get a grip.
The nail filing shocked me at first. I had never attacked my nails so brutally and
vigorously, but I was pleased with how smooth the edges felt. The French manicure went on with a shellac
finish, and all was right with the world until she massaged my hands and arms.
Holy crap, she's
touching me.
I suddenly felt like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. It's
not that it felt wrong or even that it felt bad. On the contrary, it kind of felt of
refreshing. But I obsessed about the
touching, and damn-near ruined it for myself.
I remained calm and collected, even drank two glasses of champagne on an
empty stomach. Hurrah! Success!
Success, that is, until I remembered the pedicure part of
the mani-pedi was about to begin. I
explained that I didn't like people touching my feet, and I gave a convoluted
account of why: broken bones, surgery, cut, etc. I told the sweet girl who was caring for me
(and it really was nurturing because I was on the verge of bolting, bare feet
and all) not to be offended if my foot twitched. I was fully prepared to blame everything on
medical conditions.
First came the foot bath, which felt amazing. Then the feet came out of the water and
touched a towel, followed by hands touching the feet that were touching the
towel.
NASA could not have staged a better lift-off. I was gripping the sides of the chair and had
risen probably ten inches off the seat's surface, and that was just foot
#1. By the time she got to foot #2, my
mind was unraveling and I was in serious need of medication.
The woman hostessing the event quickly brought me more
champagne. I would just like to say here
that she is an angel of mercy, and I also want to say that having a mani-pedi
honestly is a glorious experience. Much
like my deeply-rooted aversions to thunderstorms and to fireworks, this anti-fetish
of mine (not to have my feet touched)
bears its root in real life experience. But still.
It's a foot. Get over yourself,
appendage.
In the end, the chair survived, the towels survived, the
manicurist survived, and I survived… until I realized my fingernails had
shellac on them, and the only way to get the polish off was by visiting the
salon again. And so it is how I find
myself back at the nail salon all by myself with no moral support and no liquid
reinforcements.
The manicurist is fantastic, and she's funny and makes me
feel like this isn't merely my second attempt at a manicure. (Skipping the pedicure part this time… Did I
say "this time"? I meant to
say "forevermore.") I insist
on regular polish this time, though. I
want something I can take off myself.
And it's all going relatively well, I'm almost done, I've almost made it
to the sit-and-dry stage. Almost. But then…
She touches me.
That's right. I said
it. She starts massaging my
forearms. I am seriously willing myself
to relax, but even as she is working out the kinks in my wrists and lower arms,
I can feel my shoulders tensing as they involuntarily try to pull my limbs away
from the table top. My shoulder sockets
are working so hard that they feel as if they may tear. All this and I haven't moved one inch. I am still sitting serenely as if this
massage is the best thing since sliced bread.
And it may well be. Except to me.
Because I don't like
strangers touching me. Dear lord, lady,
STOP TOUCHING ME.
Fail.
Can you even imagine me at a spa? Mud packs and deep tissue massages? For chrissakes, they'd be peeling me off the
ceiling. I'd be in the asylum after that
… but don't they tie down mental patients who do things like walk the walls and
climb the draperies? Oh, that would be
bad because to apply the straps they'd have to touch me.
There must be no
touching. Please, strange people, stop touching me.
And while you're at it, strange people, stop talking to me,
too. But that's a whole other blog for
another day, right?
