Matildakay Bobblehead
Back and forth and side to side ‘J’ stretched my whiplashed neck as I lay on a table. After all this time in physical therapy I’m finally getting a famous ‘J’ massage. I thought as I listened to ‘J’ singing along with the classic rock music being piped into Terrio Therapy Fitness.

“I wonder if they have this song on karaoke?” ‘J’ asked as he dug his fingertips into a particularly sore spot on my neck.

“Do you do karaoke?” I asked him.

“I tried it for the first time on New Year’s Eve.” He replied as his hands deeply kneaded the knots and tight muscles down my neck and into my shoulders.

“Did you like it?” I asked absorbing the soreness being inflicted upon my neck.

“It was fun. All those songs I thought I knew all these years, I found out I didn’t know all the words to them.” He explained stretching my neck from side to side.

‘J’ started singing again. “Walk this way, talk this way…”

“The sad thing is, I remember when this song came out.” He said.

“So do I.” I told him.

I’m getting old. I thought.

I remember when songs on the classic rock station came out! Any minute now they’ll play ‘More than a Feeling' by Boston that always makes me think of a summer spent at the beach when I was 19 and a blue-eyed bleach blonde surfer boy who also played the drums. My memories are now classic rock songs. That’s pretty bad, I admitted to myself. In fact, I was at least 3 or 4 years older than ‘J’. At least I’m aging well. I thought remembering the Fishlips bouncer moment on Fat Tuesday.

‘J’ kneaded, pushed, and stretched my neck, digging his fingertips deep, finding every strained and sore spot in my neck as I stared at sports memorabilia hanging on the wall in front of me. It hurt and yet it felt great all at the same time. ‘J’ was Terrio’s deep tissue massage therapy expert. In the past he had tied my ankle to a table leg while forcing my knee to bend. Now he was working magic on my neck and I wondered what trick he had up his sleeve.

I didn’t have to wonder very long. ‘J’ placed his hands at the base of my head and pulled my head towards him as if he was trying to pull my head off. He held my head in that stretched position for a good minute at least. (A minute can be very long time when it feels like your head is being pulled off).

I lay there in that stretched position for an eternity it seemed. I felt like a bobblehead in that moment. As if my head was attached to a neck made of a metal spring instead of flesh, bone and muscle. I felt like the Bakersfield Condors Connor James bobblehead that was displayed on one of the sports memorabilia shelves near the front entryway of Terrio Therapy Fitness that I coveted. Connor James was my favorite Condors player of last year’s season. I loved to watch him play hockey. He made hockey seem alive when he flew across the ice. And now I was being stretched in the same manner as that Connor James bobblehead’s springy neck. ‘J’ released the stretch in which he held my head and resumed stretching my neck back and forth and side to side and kneading knots and tight muscles with his fingertips.

He repeated the bobblehead springy neck stretch several more times before finishing my deep tissue treatment. I was sure my head would be pulled off its spring like a brother might do to a sister’s favorite doll in spite. In the end, my spring like neck felt much looser and I wondered if I would see a Matildakay bobblehead on the memorabilia shelf next to the Connor James bobblehead on my way out.  posted by Matildakay at 10:42 PM