Pain "Management"

I could no longer ignore my stiff neck/back and throbbing shoulder which were the result of a car accident two months ago.  So I started up with P/T last weekend, and I got to see my favorite massage therapist, Joan.  Joan is a little Jamaican woman who, sadly, has touched my body more than anyone else has.  As this is my third accident, I'm no stranger to her claws of punishment.

Everyone thinks that it's sooo great to get a massage two or three times a week.  They are wrong, because the reality is that you spend 25 minutes squirming and trying not to scream as someone jams their elbow into your unsuspecting buttocks.  And the music is always Enya.  Or whale songs?  And the lotion.  Joan loves lotion which smells faintly of hippie onions.  There is no other way to describe it.  The scent isn't onion outright, but some sort of hippie/oniony smell.  And it gets in my hair because she likes to rub it behind my ears. 

Joan wasn't there last weekend.  But someone from the Eastern Bloc was.  I knew from her accent that her people were no stranger to centuries of pain; therefore, I too, would know great suffering for the next 25 minutes.  I'm always a little weirded out because at one point they ask you to turn over to massage your front.  And you don't want them looking at your chest, but you don't want them to think that you're thinking that they're trying to look, so you end up hurting your shoulder more,  as you try to turn while simultaeneously shielding your front and keeping yourself from rolling right off the table.

My new physcial therapist is one of those guys who brags about having a permit to carry.  He also showed me his headshots from the 80s.