In The Arms of Another: Mall Massage Chair and Me
“Can we try them?” Krista asked. “Why not? It’s only a dollar,” I said.
As soon as Krista’s chair motor started up, she jumped up and out. “It feels like it’s trying to pinch my spine,” she exclaimed.
“No, it’s just working out the kinks,” I purred. As she cautiously plunked back in her seat, the mechanism in my seat was luxuriously swirling the backs of my shoulders. I was starting to relax.
Until the spin cycle started.
“Mom, are you having a seizure?” 
“Nonononno,” I stammered, shimmying like I’ve never shimmied before. The chair was making me do unspeakable things. Things I definitely did not want to do--especially in public.
My chair faced the entrance to a “Game Stop” store where numerous male 14-year-old Halo players were exposed to my middle-aged body now opening up and shutting, grinding and jerking. They were too astonished to snicker, too repulsed to move and too affected to ever look at a woman the same way again. I tried to laugh it off, but the look on my face caused the one with a Mohawk to drop his chain wallet.
The chair began bucking like an overzealous St. Bernard and making an awful whining noise. Afraid it might start to smoke, I tried pushing another button on the remote control. However, lacking the ability to adjust my glasses during the “chair quake” to see through the bifocal lower portion, my best guesses as to what the buttons read were:
Shaggy Knead
Body Plumbing
Squeal
None or which sounded better than the current mode-- Dance Puppet.
After another minute, it DID pinch my spine, which sent me launching near a couple of teenage girls, who were bold enough to say, “What a loser” so I could definitely hear them.
Go ahead. Try it.
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