Old Naked People

Posted By:	The Boneman
Posted On:	Tue Mar 31st, 2009

Did I mention I'm going to Massage School? I can't remember - or more accurately I‘m too lazy to go back and check. Anyway the school part is pretty much over and I've now entered the phase referred to as "clinic." The portion of our educational journey where we set away our pencils and books and wade right into the real world of old naked people. I'm just kidding. There's plenty of middle-aged naked people who needs ‘em a good rub-down too. To be honest, Now that I've braved the initial weirdness of it all, I find it to be surprisingly enjoyable and frequently inspiring. (And not in the way you're thinking either - you twisted skeeze – you are seriously messed up.) It's "inspiring," because more and more I find that I seem to possess something of a supernatural affinity for the art of bodywork. Just as Vincent Van Gough was inspired to cut off his ear and mail it to a whore, wait – I mean in much the same way Rembrandt rendered his timeless classics with masterful strokes of oil, I too craft artful magic with oil as my medium, using only my bare hands, for . . . hands. In other words I think I might be getting the hang of it. I'd hate to think that after all that tuition and book-learnin' I'm still rubbin' people the wrong way.

As I become more exposed to the Senior set – and them to me – I'm finding that the commonly held notion that they're mostly a bunch of cranky fuss-budgets who believe Ben Matlock is a real person is seldom the case. Then again the fact that I'm fully dressed and they're down to their odd elder-undies tends to make them a lot easier to get along with. And as a rule their years of life experience make them far more interesting to chat with. Then again, given the choice between working on a leg that's had 18 years of life experience, and one that's had 80, the therapist has to be mindful that chatting is not conducive to calm, tranquil relaxation.

One strange little thing I've noticed in clinic that didn't seem to be problematic back in class involves the human body's natural function of exfoliating dead skin. I never noticed it at all while we were practicing on each other in class. And I don't know if this sudden windfall of exfoliation is a symptom of older skin, or if we were simply getting ourselves rubbed so often in class that we were lucky to have any skin left at all.

If you're thinking what's the big deal, it falls on the floor, the dust bunnies eat it, the food chain at work, right. And for goodness sake don't get the mistaken notion that I'm afraid of a few flakes of dead skin . . . unless they're still attached to a dead body, for example. The thing is the more you rub skin inclined to exfoliation the more it sort of rolls up and gets caught in the massage oil creating a noticeable number of lumps that I call "dead-skin dumplings." So instead of simply sloughing off and falling harmlessly away, the shedding skin continues to collect and snowball until you've got a really weird mess on your hands.

The problem is that when most people get a nice little rub from their spouse or grandkid or whoever they rarely use oil or lotion, which means they've yet to experience the dead-skin dumpling dilemma. So, as far as they're concerned, the problem must have arisen from the dude doing the rubbing right now. Yikes, suddenly I'm the party suspected of being plagued with some funky flesh affliction. "Hives, Impetigo, what're those barnacles er, carbuncles?" Whatever they might dream up, you can kiss your tip goodbye and there'll be quiet tones at the front desk as they discreetly request a different therapist for their next visit. Looks like I'm the dumpling – they got lumps and I get dumped – where's the chapter on this stuff in all those books?

Anyway, I love seniors – especially those who manage to bring a youthful sense of fun to their golden years. My maternal grandmother "Gertie" was such a good sport about her infirmities that she was famous for it. She's no longer with us, bless her soul – she's joined grandpa in the great golf course in the sky. Her medical troubles were many, but about 15 years before she passed she underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor. (Though MRIs and so forth revealed the location of the tumor to be in a particularly dangerous area of the brain, even more puzzling was the almost perfectly spherical shape it possessed as well as it's surface area which proved to be pocked by a remarkably even grid of indentations as well as strange numerals, a symbol of sorts and text – perhaps a "message," or so it was believed by growing numbers of Christian zealots who filled the waiting rooms in prayerful vigil - their numbers swelling as the surgery drew nigh. Fortunately the attending surgeon was only an occasional golfer and thus well accustomed to extracting objects from awkward positions. Though it gave us all a pretty good scare, the surgery was a success and in the interest of my Grandmother's safety the nature of the text was never publicly revealed. If I may say however – you might want to avoid the North Eastern coastline of North America pretty much anytime after March 2010.

This may strike some of you as a tad morbid but to perform surgery of this kind of delicacy the med staff must secure the cranium in such a way that there is absolutely no chance of even a hair's breadth of movement. A precaution that left my Grandma with a rather huge bolt-hole divot just off center on her upper forehead. At first everyone felt all bad and so forth that her looks should have to be marred in such a dramatic fashion, but as for my Grandma she was pushing 80 and had long since jettisoned her vanity and if anything wore her forehead-hole (or as it became abridged "the Forehole,") as a badge of honor. With any misfortune there is a grace period that must be observed before you can in good conscience start making fun of whatever it is. But between my innate kindness and respect and my cousin Drew's glaring absence of either quality the "forehole fun" began without much delay and, again, I really have to hand it to Grandma Gertie for being such a good sport. As such she went from being the foil of the jokes to a willing and essential participant.

First of all you have to understand the staggering capacity of the forehole. In fact as time passed it became increasingly wider and deeper. In it's prime you could place a Hershey's kiss, pointy-end-first and cover it with a bandaid and there'd still be enough wiggle room left with the bandaid drooping inwardly. During the surgery she lost a good bit of her sensation and it was too high up for her to see anything unless it was like car keys or a piece of a Kit Kat bar - something that ‘poked' out far enough. Everyone got into the act young and old enjoyed spending a couple hours quality time with Grandma Gertie and her forehole. Playdough in the form of a flower, she'd wear proudly as long as it was the creation of a great granddaughter or even a mediocre grand daughter. If it was made with love she'd sport their creations no matter how hopeless the artist or how much dignity sacrificed.

Silly Putty fashioned to resemble leaking gray matter could be slipped past her if a child convinced her it was a rain cloud. My uncle Wade, God Bless his soul, whom succumbed to pancreatic cancer a few years back had a Casita in his home where the folks lived out most of their final years. His house was always a hub of family activity - Gerty had 26 grandkids so the headhole gag never really got old. One day she was up and about feeling spry and full of juice, quite unaware of the green peanut M&M she'd been sporting most of the afternoon, when lo and behold a fellow peddling Satellite dish systems, came to the door. She welcomed him in and listened to some of his pitch then pointed to her forehole dent and explained that it acts as a satellite dish if she faces northeast. Of course as she proudly patted her forehole she discovered the M&M, plucked it out and offered it to the kid without missing a beat. "Care for some candy? No wonder I was getting such lousy reception," she'd mumble as she popped the M&M in her mouth and walked away without a word of goodbye. To be honest, I embellished that bit just a tad but the major events are true, right down to the green M&M. I must also confess that the family legend about Gertie's Forehole being filled in by Boo Radley's miserable old man with a trowel of cement and a spackle knife is also only partially correct. My cousin Drew stabbed him in the leg with a pair of scissors before he got within 5 feet of her.