Massage by the Blinds People

Massage by the Blinds People. That’s an actual sign I pass each day on the way to run down in Nai Harn beach. I continually joke about going there, mostly because the sign itself gave me the giggles. Then yesterday Lindsay and I wanted a massage and had heard a good review of the blind massage place, so we decided to check it out.

I made the initial blunder of trying to communicate a special order through hand signals and the little Thai that I know. I mention I’ve been experiencing a lot of discomfort in my shoulders hoping that would translate into nixing the pointless (yet extremely enjoyable) butt and upper thigh massage.

Rather than focusing on ridding me of the shoulder pain, some communication wires were crossed/severed/blown to smithereens and a sharper more poignant pain was instead inflicted. 

The small sightless Thai man with hulk hands begins to press the entirety of his body weight down onto the side of my body as if juicing an unripe grapefruit. He proceeds to delve into my back like an Olympic synchronized swimmer and give me the most painful massage since they stopped allowing Mr. T to give complimentary rubdowns at the local LA Fitness.

 At some points during this ordeal, I felt as if my little blind masseur had a bet going with the others to see how long it took before I shouted “UNCLE” and sprinted from the building. In addition to his overzealous attempt at breaking every vertebra in my spine, the lack of sight made finding the appropriate parts of my body to massage quite the challenge. A few times I felt like I was back in the classroom being violated from all sides by tiny inquisitive hands.

I woke up this morning and felt as if the top half of my body had been repeatedly beaten with Redwood branches. This sharp pain most likely stems from the portion of my rubdown when the blind bandit began using his razorblade elbows as a probing mechanism for the numerous knots in my neck. At one point during this particular method, I nearly bit off part my tongue.

Complementing the sever backache is jaw pain from clenching to disperse the pain among other parts of my body. Normally I use the self-pinching method, where I pinch a part of my arm or leg extremely hard during painful situations in the futile hope that the self-inflicted pain will eclipse the pain coming from other directions.

After ‘bowing my back until it reached tenderized beef stage, homeboy grabs my wrists while I lie face down and without warning jerks me backward in a Christ on the crucifix type position. Strangely enough, that part actually felt good. At the end of this agonizing debacle, Mr. Miyagi slaps me on the back, shouts “finished” and scampers off. Next time I’ll just spoon out the extra Baht and go to a chiropractor.