The Blind Massage Incident

I had often heard about the massage places that feature the blind. I had heard that they were usually the best massages that you could get. Well in Cambodia, a tuk-tuk driver recommended a place to me. It's called the Seeing Hands Massage and he claimed that they were the best around. So I thought I would give it a try.

I entered the establishment and settled on a one hour foot massage at a price of $8 USD. I was given to one of the many blind girls in the shop who led me to the massage area. This was unlike other foot massage places I had been as this place had no chairs, but you would lay down and elevate your legs as they gave you the foot massage. Not very comfortable, but I really had no choice.

In the beginning, the massage was very comforting. And as I often do, I fell asleep during the massage. But then, embarrassingly, I woke up to one of my self toots. Yes, I had farted in front of the masseuse! It took me a few seconds to realize it as I was just coming out of my sleep, but there was no doubt about it, the gas had escaped.

Normally, if awake, I have control of my muscles. I could squeeze those cheeks and prevent such an attrocity. But, alas, my relaxed state of being did not allow the luxury.

I had hoped that I could've gotten away with it without too much embarrassment. But, unfortunately, on my low-carb diets, I often buy these non- sugar treats that can cause the most obnoxious gas at times. This was one of those times. This is what I unleashed on that poor blind girl.

I heard a slight gasp come from this unfortunate girl. But she continued to massage on like a true professional would. I can only imagine what was going through her mind. But she spoke no English and I speak no Cambodian, or Khmer, as it's called, and so no words were spoken. The only means of communication we had was that obnoxious, foul odor in the air.

I have heard it said that the blind have heightened senses in other areas to compensate for their loss of sight. If that is true, this did not work in her favor. I expect her sensitive olfactories were in a state of shock at the encounter.

There was no way I could recover from this. There was nothing I could do and no words to be spoken. My mind went back to the ninth grade to my earth science class. Mr. Byron was the teacher and the class was the first one after lunch. One time during the class, Mr. Byron was teaching on harnessing energy from waterfalls. As he spoke that line, he sat down at his desk, and when doing so he let out a rather loud toot of his own. I remember the class was stunned and said nothing, But, Mr. Byron quickly quipped, "somebody needs to harness that!"

With that the entire class broke out laughing, and it broke the tension. I was wishing that I could add a moment like that, but any comments like that would be lost on this poor, Cambodian girl. So we both had to just endure the moment until it passed.

But something did change shortly after that. The blind girl was much less enthusiastic about doing a good job. In fact, she began to massage my foot with only one hand with hardly any pressure at all. And she was actually using her other hand to put her cell phone up to her ear and listen to messages. A big no-no in the massage industry.

But I guess she felt that I broke all rules of etiquette when I had unleashed that horror upon her. Naturally, she felt justified, since there were no rules of conduct anymore, that she could do as she pleased as well. I'm glad it culminated into just a crappy massage, and she didn't have any bombs to unleash on me.

I know this story sounds like it belongs on a fictional Friday post. I wish it did. But no, this is a true story and happened exactly as I tell it here.