_edited.png)
Friends, things are weird everywhere, and I can only post so many "inspirational, we're all in this together" things before I get annoyed with myself.
SO! With details rearranged and some people made from a composite of several, these stories are at least MOSTLY true. The basics are real, but obviously, to protect privacy of everybody involved, yadda yadda, you get the point.
SLIPPERY STONES
I was in my first couple of weeks as a Licensed Massage Therapist. I had done the requisite (and super brief) training on hot stone massages, and lo and behold, there on my schedule was a 90-minute Hot Stone Massage.
Eep.
Ok. I knew the rules: Keep the stones at the correct temperature. Use lots of lotion or oil so they glide well, check in with the client, and never leave a stone in place for longer than my own hands could tolerate the heat (that last one is my own personal guideline -- I never just leave a stone on a person).
What didn't I realize?
When a hot, smooth stone is really well lubricated, that sucker is SLIPPERY.
And when it's hot? It's even harder to keep hold of.
Imagine if you will my client, lying face-down on the table, blissfully ensconced in warmed sheets and blankets, feeling me gliding the large (maybe 4 or 5 inches across), heavy hot stones across his upper back. Lovely!
But I wanted to rearrange something, so I balanced the two large oval stones in one hand while uncovering the other shoulder. My stone-full hand moved through the air maybe 6 inches above the vulnerable noggin of a sleeping person.
Bad plan.
You can see it coming, can't you?
Those stones squirted out of my hand like the escargot scene in "Pretty Woman." One went straight up, the other right toward the client's cranium.
I truly don't know how, but in a moment of gymnastic triumph, I snatched the flying missiles from the air and clamped them to my chest, proceeding to bruise my sternum in at least one place, all while the client relaxed in sweet oblivion.
After that, my hot stone massages have been spectacularly less exciting, thank goodness.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
When moving oily hot stones to another part of the body, don't hover above the client's head.
And for heaven's sake, don't tell them if you nearly knocked them unconscious. They don't need to know.
