Welcome to Sunday Morning Hot Tea where I write about a little something up top then answer a legal question for you down below. This week, relaxing after a massage, and that’s it.
In this edition:
Topic of the Week – I’m Sorry for Being Here
Legal Question – Nada
Spa Day
The most dangerous taco I ever had was a Taco Diner in the West Village in Dallas. I love Taco Diner. They serve Mambo Taxis, which are maybe my favorite drink. A Mambo Taxi is a frozen margarita with sangria swirled in it. It's what you order when you want to get drunk on top of being drunk. I had started in on a couple of tacos alongside my Mambo Taxi when I bit down on something hard.
I peeled open the corn tortilla and found a whopping piece of plastic lying beside the chicken tinga. It was sharp on one end and about the size of a pinky finger. I slipped it out of the taco, having avoided lancing my tongue, and finished the rest of my plate. Can't let a little thing like jagged industrial material get in the way of a meal at the Taco D. After I had sucked down the last of my drink and paid the check, I called the server over.
“I don’t want to bother you, but just in case it happens to someone else, you should know that there was a sharp bit of plastic in my taco.” I held up the prison shiv I had just eaten around.
“Totally fine, no big deal. No worries. Just wanted to let y’all know in case someone else happens to eat some plastic.”
Her eyes got huge, and she drug the manager over. I repeated myself, and again emphasized how it was not a big deal and I was only telling them for safety purposes. They were horrified, apologized, and tried to comp my meal. By then it was too late. I let them keep the evidence and slipped out.
I could be fed components of a serving dish and still just eat around it. I don’t even complain. I only feel bad when I have to bother someone about it, which I felt compelled to do that day just in case someone else wasn't as discerning of an eater as me. Honestly with the way I take down tacos, I’m surprised I even noticed.
It’s the same when it comes to personal services. I have gotten my fair share of massages over the years. I could tell you it’s because of back problems or for health and circulation benefits. The truth is that they feel good and I like to get them.
I have enjoyed wonderful massages and also endured horror shows. Rarely do I complain, and everybody always gets tipped. I also understand the irony of complaining about a massage. Once I received a real half-hearted massage. As I lay there on my stomach, eyes closed, drooling, half-asleep, I thought, “Wow, how lazy.”
Again, I thought it. I would never say it. I get up. I pay. I tip. I leave. I just request a different person the next time I go.
I am not a fuss-maker. I watch a lot of those public freakout videos where someone is screaming at McDonald’s workers and could never imagine being that way. I chalk it up to my not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings. Perhaps, yes, my feedback could help them improve, but also — could it? I have no idea how to comment intelligently on massage technique. I figure sometimes it’s just not a good fit.
On Valentine’s Day this year, I got a text from my dear friend, Meagan. She asked if I’d like to go get a foot-only massage at a reflexology place. Her pals from book club had recommended it and had wonderful things to say.
She and I met in the parking lot just before our appointment time. I jumped in her passenger seat while she finished up a quick drive-thru dinner.
The massage “spa” is a slim storefront in a strip mall beside a local pizza chain and a personal training gym. The gym’s wide windows and bright lights offer zero privacy and an excellent view of their wall art. One wall reads, “Strong people are harder to kill.”
It looks like my kind of gym because everyone inside there on Valentine’s Day looked like beginners. It looked like maybe the owners had stapled flyers to telephone poles reading, “Have you been beat up your whole life? Come to our gym where we’ll make you harder to kill.” We won’t make you invincible or immortal. You still will be killed, but it won’t be convenient for your murderer.
I look past Meagan down at the storefront where we are due to check in in about three minutes. Through the glass, I see a guy standing behind a small counter looking at his phone. The lobby is empty except for an enormous poster of a person I should 100% recognize from history class but don’t. Here's the thing — I have not been in a history class in like fifteen years. A lot of stuff has happened to me since then.
Since I can’t remember, I say to Meagan, “Is that the king of China?”
She laughs through bites of her chicken nuggets. Totally fair. It was a dumb question.
I pull out my phone to Google it. Google never laughs at me. Maybe, sure, it offers a gentle, “Did you mean...?” but I never take that as snarky. It always feels like it is being helpful without being a know-it-all, while still knowing it all.
If it came back with, “Really, Heather? King of China?? Did you mean Emperor of China?” then I would get my feelings hurt.
The current leader of China is not an emperor. That’s a shame because emperor is such a better and more boss title than king or president. The current guy is the president/leader/commander of the military, and his name is Xi Jinping. I know that because I watch CNBC sometimes during the day to feel like I work in an office but without all the other people around. I know the man on the poster is not him.
My brain jumps to the Beatles song “Revolution” and its warning of the consequences for “carrying pictures of Chairman Mao.” I always thought they were saying “chemin.” That's not a word, I know, which made it all the more confusing.
Remembering the song, I say to Meagan, “Oh yeah, that’s Chairman Mao. From the Beatles song.”
“Remind me again, what did he do?” she asks.
I Google him. One of the top subjects the articles about him is millions of people dying. I know for sure that there has got to be more to it than that, but I also know it takes more than three minutes to grasp the breadth and depth of international politics and the history of a whole country.
“Just because they put up his picture does not mean they support all that,” she says. She is right. I have since learned that the appeal of Mao's image is an evolving phenomenon.
“True,” I say. “Plus, you never know who owns what. Take this pizza place for instance.” I point to the storefront we're facing. “It could be run by fascists, but how would we know?”
I survey the man behind the counter on the phone jotting down a pizza order. He has a chest-length beard that must smell like pepperoni at the end of the night. He is wearing a faded T-shirt with Cartman from South Park dressed like a police officer. Words printed across his chest read, “Respect my authoritah!”
“Unless they deliver your pizza with the pepperonis in a very specific shape, there’d really be no way of knowing,” I say.
By now the man from inside the spa has walked outside. With his phone in one hand, he uses his free hand to pop a cigarette in his mouth. Then, with the same free hand, he somehow both blocks the wind and lights his cigarette with a plastic Bic lighter at the same time. I am impressed. It is like a sleight of hand magic trick.
We get out of the car and walk towards the door. Noticing us, he holds the door open and stamps out his cigarette.
“Thank you. I am so sorry,” I say, apologizing for my presence. I wonder what we just interrupted. Was he swiping on dates? Checking his crypto balance? Maybe looking up “The best of David Blaine street magic” on YouTube? I don't know. All I do know is that he had just lit that smoke and we interrupted him.
He is neither annoyed nor overly friendly. Still, I apologize for intruding into his well-lit business with an unlocked door and a neon sign in the window saying “WELCOME, PLEASE COME IN.” Even with a sign like that, I’m like “Are you sure? You're sure it's ok if I come in?”
The clerk pushes his shoulder length hair behind his ears. I can see his T-shirt through his black unzipped hoodie. It's a cat wearing sunglasses in space. I always thought space was dark, but then again I’ve never been. Maybe the cat knows something I don’t.
He checks us in for our pre-booked appointments. Meagan and I take a seat under Mao’s watchful eyes.
The lobby is small, only four chairs and the small counter, plus a barrel fountain that sounds like Niagara Falls. The clerk leaves us and walks through a door. He jostles a sign on the door that reads, “Please do not make noise. Services are in progress.”
Meagan had asked for us to be placed beside one another. Peeking through the door, I am now realizing this won’t be a chatty pedicure-style encounter. It is going to be a silent couple’s massage situation instead.
“You think they'll let me bring my Sprite in?” she asks. I consider the flickering fluorescent lights, the smoking, the sign that demands tips in cash only.
“I think you'll be just fine,” I say.
The door to the services room opens. A college-age couple steps out. He is in pressed khakis and a crisp navy polo. Either dressed for a date or has finished a day at the local private Christian school. I look at his feet. Boat shoes, no socks. God bless the poor soul who had to touch those things. His date is a lithe blonde in a slinky black dress. Her hair is mussed. They both look ravaged — their eyes dreamy and sleepy.
Meagan and I exchange glances, hoping they just got really, REALLY good foot massages, and that’s all, right?
The front door opens. A woman dressed in scarves and Birkenstocks pushes past the couple and takes a seat at the end of the row. With her arrival, the lobby shrinks to the size of a shoe box. She gives the clerk her name and sits back, arms crossed.
Peeking through the door again, I see one woman and one man, each in polo shirts embroidered with the company’s name on their chests. I can see the whole services room and note that there is no one else in a polo.
I start to do the math. Three clients. Two providers. One guy whose smoke break I’ve already ruined.
The man in the polo waves Meagan and me into the back room and gestures to two chairs beside one another. He brings wooden buckets of water to each of us. Each bucket is covered in a plastic foot bucket condom. The plastic is thin, thinner than a Ziploc bag. I try to convince myself if it can hold water, it can keep residual foot funk from getting to me. Unless they use the same foot condom for every person. I would have no way of knowing.
It is important to share with you that I am wearing yoga tights this night. Not cotton leggings, but spandex yoga pants. The kind that fit snug around your ankle. This, it would turn out, was a miscalculation.
When I was in high school, my boyfriend once took a long look at my naked body as I was lying on his bed. It was just after he had fumbled his way through what was technically intercourse, but with the benefit of hindsight, I now know was just enthusiastic flailing for the length of a Sugar Ray song.
He's going to tell me I'm beautiful, I thought, noticing his gaze.
Oh, you precious 18-year-old idiot. No, no he is not.
“You have got some of the biggest calves I have ever seen on a girl,” he told me.
Wow.
For years after that, I would ask friends, “Do my calves look big in this?” which is a completely unhinged thing to ask. My calves are fine. He must have been hanging out with a crowd who skipped leg day. Let me know if they need a gym. I know a place that can make them harder to kill. They probably do leg stuff over there, too.
Even knowing he was just an ass and my calves are average, I can still be a little sensitive about them sometimes. I’ve had to retrain my brain, and things like skinny jeans and yoga pants can make me second guess myself.
Upon delivery of the water bucket, Meagan leans over and starts rolling up her yoga pants. It’s a quick motion. She is done in twenty seconds or less. If there were some kind of contest for this and an underground betting ring formed in response, I would put my money on her every time.
I also want to reiterate that the yoga pants I am wearing are super tight. The holes at the bottom are made for feet and ankles only. They're not made for calves. If your calf is the circumference of your ankle there is a term for that. It's called a cankle. Or maybe that's when your ankle is the size of your calf. So in this case, it would be a reverse cankle. I'm not sure, doesn't matter. But these thick calves of mine were not going quietly into those foot-sized holes.
I start with a thumb-tuck/yank move and manage to get the right leg up. When I go for the left, we stall out about 80% of the way. For a second I think maybe I'll just leave it there, but my mind races to the circulation I have just impeded with the tight stitching of these pants.
I remember a commercial I heard for deep vein thrombosis. It wasn't mentioned specifically, but yoga pant mishaps have to be a leading cause. I think of the lawyer commercials that play during daytime TV. Have your calves been trapped in an ankle hole? You may be entitled to compensation.
By this point, Meagan is lying back, covered with a gray bath towel they give you so you can get cozy. I try to lie back, but my calf dough, half-squeezed out through the black spandex, is starting to hurt.
I can't leave it here. I have to go further up. To go further up, I am going to have to snap some stitches. The real enemy isn't the fabric of the ankle hole. It's the thread. I hook my thumbs in and pull.
There is a small Bluetooth speaker playing calming spa music. The rushing rapids of the lobby fountain are clear as a bell through the cracked door. The Birkenstocks lady is deep in the throes of relaxation just ten feet away. I snap the threads. They pop, and I swear the sound echoes off the tile floors like a record scratch.
With my leg meat free, I finally lie back. The man in the blue polo approaches Meagan. He points to a kitchen timer set for 60 minutes. She gives the thumbs up.
I look around and do the math again. Two polo shirts. Two massages that have begun. And me.
I give Meagan a look before her massage begins.
“At least you can write about this later,” she says.
The clerk from the front desk comes into the back room and sits in front of me. He pushes up the sleeves of his hoodie.
Not only have I interrupted him from his break, but he is now going to have to put his hands on my feet for a whole hour. I stop myself from apologizing again. I wonder but do not ask - if he’s back here, who is manning the front desk?
I look over to Meagan to see whether she is going eyes-open or eyes-closed. I can’t decide what to do. She has her eyes closed. I lie my head back and decide to go eyes closed, too. Not soon enough, though. Before I close my eyes, I catch the clerk’s face. His eyes are rolled toward the ceiling in an expression I take for full irritation.
This is my worst case massage scenario. I don’t want to bother this man. Yes, I get that this is his job and this is what he does, at least on a substitute basis. But my people-pleasing kicks in and I am overcome with guilt.
For a pinch hitter, he does a fine job. He presses down on - what I think - are pressure points. It lasts the full sixty minutes. A massage is almost always relaxing, except when you feel guilty about your very existence.
It must have been good because at one point I catch myself snoring a bit. The sound wakes me back up. A few minutes before it ends, they go and get towels to rub the lotion off. Whoever washed my towel skipped the fabric softener. For a second, I wonder if it is a special exfoliating towel. He rubs one leg then the other.
Ah, he got all the dead skin off, I think. Then he heads back for leg one and starts going at it again. At this point, only live skin is left. How many layers does it take to get to bone?
When the timer beeps, it's pencils down. I sit up and try to pull my pants back into shape. For Meagan, it's one quick move and she is ready to roll. I yank mine back down with a determined motion, ready to leave this man like we found him as soon as possible. We pay and head out to her car.
For a few minutes, we sit together as I make notes in the small notebook I carry with me for just such an occasion. Meagan asks if I fell asleep during the massage.
“Yeah, for a second,” I say. “But I woke back up. Why?”
“I wasn't sure if the snoring was you or your guy. When I opened my eyes to check, I saw him with one hand on your foot and the other texting,” she says.
For the first time, I relax.
He must have felt compelled to message a friend and alert them to the situation: I have never seen yoga pants this tight around someone's calf. I am honestly concerned.
Whoever he was texting probably asked if the calves were big or the pants were small.
It's not the calves, he must have said. They're normal size. It's the pants. The ankle holes weren't made for this.
Down the way in front of the spa, I see the clerk out front again. He’s got his phone in one hand. He lights another cigarette with his other, takes a deep drag, and sighs.
***
QUESTIONS FROM YOU
Normally this is where I answer a legal/pop culture question from you. I’ve been doing a little pro bono legal research for an organization this week, so my lawyer brain has been elsewhere. I’ll hit y’all back with some more legal answers soon.
Got a legal question? Submit it here. They can be legal what-if questions, questions on current events, or questions about the legality of actions in TV shows or movies you’ve seen. I never ever want to answer your personal legal questions, so don't send those. Love you, but I don’t do that.
Until next week, that’s the tea, and if I’m eating a taco, even plastic can’t stop me!
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