loose lips

Saturday night I had a few too many cocktails. While Sunday and Monday were no treat, I think I got away Saturday night mostly unscathed. I didn't remove any articles of clothing, I didn't threaten anyone, the only thing that I can recall doing inapproriately was telling a story to an elderly couple that I inadvertantly ended with the punchline, " MOTHERFUCKER !"

The story I was conveying had just happened the night previous, last Friday. As any regular reader already knows by my ranting that day, I was particularly stressed out. I left work looking for trouble and when my wife called and asked if I would meet her and the girls at the mall, trouble was going to be easy to find.

I walked up to the mall bar and asked, " do you have any single malt scotch ?"

The 21 year old college girl behind the counter looked back at me blankly, " ummm single what ?"

I repeated myself and she dug around in the well for a while and found me a bottle of Glenlivet, " How would you like that ?"

" Scotch and water please."

To my astonishment, she then picked up a soda glass, filled it with ice, poured some scotch over the ice, then proceeded to fill the glass with water, stopping only when I started screaming from across the bar. To add insult to injury, as I sat there mouth agape wonder what to do, she plopped a bill in front of me for $7.

The head waitress (which at this place meant another 21 year old, but this one had probably been there for more than 6 weeks) walked over and asked if there was a problem.

" Yeah.", I answered, " Do you think that you might be able to strain this into another, perhaps smaller glass, without ice ?"

" Sure", she said. Then strained out the drink into a second soda glass handing me what was, essentially, a half filled glass of slightly tinted water.

Miserably, spitefully, I downed the swamp water and followed it up with a couple of Yuenglings and dinner with the wife and kids.

After dinner, Mrs. Flick had a couple of things to get in the mall and so off we went into that hell hole. She's veteran enough to know that I was going to be a royal pain in the ass, so as well walked by one of those massage kiosks she said, " Hey listen, while the girls and I are shopping, why don't you get a massage ?"

" A mall massage ?", I asked incredulously, " no way."

" Come on. Your options are to walk around looking at little girls clothes or this. Go ahead, it will relax you."

After some further dialoge, she walked over, had a brief discussion with the Chinese dude in blue doctor scrubs and then came back. " See that guy over there, he'll take care of everything."

Begrudgingly, I walked over to the guy, " OK, where do we go ?"

He looked at me puzzled and pointed over to this contraption about 10 feet away.

" HERE ! right here ?!"

He nodded and pointed again.

Right there in the middle of the aisle with Friday night shoppers walking back and forth was this massage kneeler. " You have got to be f-ing kidding me." I looked back at the guy and he stared happily back at me.

" Ah fuck it, lets do it", I figured I'm face down on that thing no one can see me, what the hell. He put down this paper thing, like a toilet seat cover, I shoved me face in the hole and the dude started pounding away at my back.

10 minutes later he tapped me on the shoulder. " Ok, we're done ?", I asked.

" No no...over more", he replied in broke English. I couldn't understand what he was talking about.

Finally a younger Chinese girls walked over and in a little better English informed me, " You wife, she get you foot massage too. 10 minute each foot"

" Ok, fine, he told me to get up.", I started back to the massge contraption.

" No, you go over here", the girl grabbed my arm and pulled me around to the other side of the kiosk where I was surprised to see a lazy boy/ barko lounger chair with a footstool. " You sit"

Kinda stunned I sat in the chair. I looked down and the Chinaman pulled off my shoes and sock. Then he pulled on these giant gloves. The only time I've seen gloves of that type were on an Animal Planet show where they were impregnating horses. And just like on that show he started lubing the gloves up in this vat of oil.

" You lay back now see !", and with that hit a button that send the barkolounger in full recline mode.

So as most of you probably have gathered, I have a tendency to be an extremely self conscious person. Some might say that it borders on paranoid, and those people are being polite. So laying akimbo, with the top end of me half way into the northbound aisle of the mall councourse, and the south end of me being rubbed by a lubed up Chinaman in latex is not what I would described as a comfortable moment for me.

" Hey...uh Fong...do you have a curtain or something ?"

" No ! You lay back now !"

" How about a couple of those paper towels I can put over my face or something ?"

" Ha ha, you funny ", apparently thinking that I wasn't serious about the towels.

With that, Fong pickup up my left foot to his eye level holding it in his left hand. He reared back with his right hand like a prize fighter and WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAP, hauled off and punched me as hard as he could...six times right into the base of my heel.

" HOLY SMOKES !", I yelled startled. Then all of a sudden, for the first time in weeks, my left leg went totally relaxed. Holy crap that felt good.

I looked down at Fong with my eyes just about bugged out of my head and he looked back at me with a knowing grin, " You lay back now, yes ?"

So whats a brother to do ? There's really no middle ground in a scene like that. As uncomfortable as the situation was, I really had to choices. The first was to call the whole thing off, the other was to just go with it. I figured screw it, the situation was so surreal I'd just go with it. It was going to take about 17 more minutes then it would be done and over, and really I was starting to feel better.

I put my hands on my belly, laid back, closed my eyes and started to relax.

At first I could hear the voices in the background, " hey look at that dude getting a massage.......watch out for that dudes head....."

breathe in breathe out...ignore the voices...

" hey that guy is letting another guy rub his feet...heh heh"

breathe....ignore....and sure enough it was starting to work. Pretty soon the voices all blended into each other as they passed by. Fong was rubbing the tension out of my feet, I was breathing nice and easy, and for the first time in forever I started to relax and let the stress of life flow out of my body...starting to find my happy place.....

Then....


" BOOOOOOOO !"

Instinctively, my eyes popped open. Two inches from my face...literally nose to nose, was my next door neighbor with her brood of kids and husband in tow. " Har har har har......I saw you laying there and I just HAD to do that, ha ha ha" she giggled like a mental patient.

Which leads me back to the beginning of this story, end of that story, and a new dynamic between my neighbors and I as I sat up in the chair sending her reeling back and yelled, of all things, " MOTHERFUCKER !"