Spa culture – It’s shocking!
Just another day at the spa — nature sound CDs, scented oils and electric shock therapy.
A new spa opened down the street from my house, just as my former spa-haunt (read previous shocking revelation) was pulling down its sign and closing up shop. I decided to try another neighborhood locale and made an appointment for a masaje relajante, which was described as gentle and as the name says, relaxing.
Everything starts with the usual routine of taking off your clothes, slipping under a towel and lying face-down. The massage therapist walks around the table, stands next to my head and says, corriente? I wonder why she’s asking me if I want a “normal” massage. What else could she mean? Through the circle in the massage table my face poked through, I murmur with a rising intonation, corriente? She says yes, corriente eléctrica, electric current?
I whip my head around to see her grasping a handful of these squid-like electrodes. I say yes, and place my head back in the hole thinking that I certainly had not given that decision much thought. I feel a cool sensation touch my back several times. “I’ll start out slow. It shouldn’t hurt,” she says. I imagine myself so shocked by the initial voltage that I start convulsing. She turns the knob. “How do you feel?” she asks. I don’t respond. “You’ll start to feel something like ants,” she says.
Oh, how soothing to be reminded of the insidious creatures that attack anything I leave on the counter for more than five seconds! I feel a tingling sensation and my muscles start twitching. She asks if I want more. A little more, I say — once again not sure what I am getting myself into.
She then placed what felt like a heating pad on my back and began massaging my legs. After realizing that I had, at least until that moment, survived the ordeal, I started to relax. Now that it’s all said and done, I might even try corriente eléctrica again!
