Don't rub it in.

Steve has a high pain threshold. He regularly notices that parts of his hands, legs, or arms are bleeding and can't figure out how or when it happened. I'm not kidding; this happens at least once a month, and often it's not just a little nick, but an actual drip-drip kind of bleeding.

He also has a slight masochistic tendency and loves nothing better than a really good deep-tissue massage. The kind that leaves bruises. He likes it when the massage therapist reaches in under his shoulder blade to loosen up those muscles. Or digs her knee into his buttock muscle.

Okay, that last bit sounded rather inappropriate, but it was actual therapy, folks, nothing dirty. Sheesh. My husband and Jack Layton have something in common.

Source

Me? Not so much.

Despite having given birth to three of my four kids without ANY pain medication (except for an early-labour glass of wine because I'd been told that it would stop false labour, but not the real thing, so the glass of wine was a test), I am a complete wuss when it comes to massages. I like a gentle massage that just gets the blood flowing. But not so gentle that it tickles.

I'm a tough customer.

I also feel the same way about massages as I do about pedicures: impatient. Just get it done, already. After a fairly short amount of time I'm just ready for them to stop touching me. Not a terrifically relaxing feeling.

All in all, for relaxation, I'd rather just take my Kindle and a glass of wine and soak in the tub or sit by the pool.

As the Bloggess said after her recent Swedish massage, "That was not relaxing at all. Next time I’m just skipping straight to the drunk part."

[English Nazi note: I put today's title in "sentence case" (and I'm not even sure if that's what it's called, but I think Jeff used that term once, and it sounded right, so I'm using it here) because I can't remember whether the "it" and "in" are supposed to be capitalized in "title case." Jeff, please weigh in.]