The unfortunate incident of the bum massage.
Have you ever had to ask anyone to massage your bum muscles? If you have I suggest that you do not admit it to anyone. Okay let me give you are ‘brief’ history. As many of you know, I take part in the fantastic sport of rowing. This means getting up early at the weekend, carrying heavy boats, bruising yourself and then competing against other teams of ladies in treacherous tsunami-like conditions. Sometimes the boats sink, other times mothers have to save their children from drowning and fellow team members fart when they shout ‘start’ at the beginning of the race (they said start not fart!). I am still disturbed that I actually inhaled someone else’s intestine at the beginning of a race.
After training endlessly for hours, experiencing painful blisters and muscle burn - you endure it all for the rare occasion when you actually win… Yes win. The tingling feeling of winning and the elation that you have conquered the conditions to be number one is a motivator for many. I go for the cake. Please don’t tell my team that… There are loads of Victoria sponges and chocolate brownies – all homemade. I have the domestic capability of a squid with leprosy… So the delight of a light sponge is a dream.
Sorry I deviated. There have been many times where we have come second but last week we ‘connected’ and gave it our all in conditions that would extract washing from the washing line and deposit it five miles down the road – usually on a cow’s head! So with all this in mind, for two races we gave it full power, so much so, my bow person, Sally, held back from vomiting on my back. We reached our limits, surpassed them and then pushed again… After, albeit elated, my left buttock was up in arms, it does not have any arms but if it did it would have been waving them! That miserable buttock felt like it was on fire…
After a night of celebration, where one of my team nodded off on her pizza, the cox lost her voice and there were some random incidents of knicker borrowing and bra lending… I headed home for a night of grumbling buttock. I decided that I was suffering from a complaint called rower’s buttock. Since the muscles were tight, I thought I would be able to solve the buttock revolt by taking part in hot yoga. Surely a buttock would not feel hot if the surrounding temperature was higher than the buttock – that must be some law of physics… Unfortunately the bottom burn was not solved, so I called my local sports masseuse and requested a massage. I simply said I was a rower and needed a ‘rowing’ massage.
That Tuesday I was all concerned at work. I mentioned the situation to the boys at work, they all suddenly experts in the art of bum massage. I suggested that they demonstrate on each other and suddenly their skills were not so refined or vocal. Boys!
So that evening I ventured into the Sports massage shop and went up to the rather gorgeous and statuesque looking man and whispered. ‘Hi am here for the bum massage.’
He smiled politely. ‘I came for the personal trainining!’
Bugger! Could I pretend I was a personal trainer?
The image of a tortoise retracting into its shell spun through my mind…Why does it always happen to me? I had just confessed that I was having a bum massage to a hot, male stranger. Yes it worked as an opening line but I don’t think such lines result in dates… Hmmm.
Anyway, my Dutch masseuse emerged from the massage room. She was petite, blonde and looked quite fragile. I have noticed that this sort of person usually has the most vicious thumbs…
‘Are you the masseuse?’
She nodded.
‘You are the rower…’
I nodded.
‘Follow me…’
We went into the stark brown room that was decorated with wall charts of muscles. Pride of place, at the centre of the wall, was a pair of muscular buttocks.
‘That’s what I have…’ I said pointing.
‘Everyone has those,’ she responded with a straight face.
I studied her and noticed she was smirking at her own joke.
‘So lie down then…’
I studied the massage table and removed my trousers.
‘I wore the largest knickers I own so that you do not have to see my bottom,’ I blurted. Admittedly they nearly reached my neck and resembled something that superman might wear over tights… I was being considerate.
The expression of confusion washed over her face… ‘I am going to massage your Glutes not admire them…’
It was lucky that I hadn’t decorated them then!
I was so embarrassed. I will not go into further details but the massage commenced. At this time I would like to cut to the image of a particularly vicious WWF wrestling match. Followed by Rocky being knocked down in one of his films and finally a milk jelly being hit by a large mallet.
Anyway when I suffer from pain, I laugh. I don’t know why but the more painful it is the more I laugh. The woman was elbowing my left posterial cheek - I was laughing hysterically and it became contagious. The more I laughed the more she laughed. We had to call a time out to catch our breaths, that was before she attacked the second cheek. Admittedly the right side was not so painful but I would prefer you to imagine slapping a cheesecake with a table tennis bat, rolling a rolling pin of hard boiled eggs with shells on and finally popping giant bubble wrap with your bare feet…
Pop!
And then the massage was over. I had tears in my eyes, bruises on my bottom and a masseuse who was studying me whilst coughing through laughter…. We went out to reception to pay and I gave her a tip. ‘One pound for each butt cheek ,’ I said. If I had had a fat bottom, with the equivalent of double chins, I would have given her four pounds…
She looked at me again and I noticed that the reception was quiet. ‘I was suffering from rower’s buttock and she has straightened my cheek out.’ I said with a gentle pat to my posterior.
There was one of those arid silences. There was no room for a tumble-weed, more of a bit of dust attached to a clump of hair that could be found in the carpet…. Of course, those who were sitting in reception were the beautiful elite. One woman was the type to visit the gym wearing the smallest leopard skin outfits. No doubt shefound apt places to bend over to distract the men while they were grunting. The chap sitting by the door was rather fit and obviously an athlete. He was now staring at my straightened buttock…. Hmm how did I get him from there to my face?
So with all this in mind… This is for the young ladies at the rowing club who asked me to write more about the random things that happen in my life… You know who you are… Clue - you speak with odd accents….
Moral of the story: Tight buttocks might sound like a good idea but are not terribly practical.
Moral of the story two: when confessing to being in need of a bottom massage make sure you don’t tell the wrong person.
Moral of the story three: Take six pairs of spare knickers to every rowing race because someone will at some point either lose, soil or end up with wet knickers….
