It was way, way out of my comfort zone, and certainly NOT my idea! We were on a beach in Cozumel and a lady approached Janet with a brochure about a massage. Janet was all in on that conversation, so I wandered over to the water’s edge looking for any little fish I could spot.

A few minutes later I wandered back and she had booked one – a one hour couple’s massage. Ouch! The lady who made the sale stood staring at me looking like her children wouldn’t have shoes if I refused.

Hesitantly, very, very hesitantly, I agreed. Janet just laughed and said it would be fine. I wasn’t so sure. The lady, who turned out to be the only sales person because she was the only one who spoke a little bit of English, led us to a thatched roof hut 150 feet away.

A little woman who worked there used body language to tell me to take off my shirt off. Well! I never! That’s just weird! I am not just simply a hunked out muscle of meat, you know! And for that lady to just make a motion to take my shirt off in front of her and God, well that just ain’t right! Besides, I didn’t even know her, and more importantly, where had her hands been?!

Janet just kept telling me it was all fine, but it was awkward, you know? I just felt so, so, so vulnerable.

Eventually I took my shirt off and hesitantly laid face down on a massage table. Instinct took over though and I reached for the backpack that had our valuables in it, including my wallet and credit cards. I could just see getting fooled into being all relaxed and some sneaky little foreign boy come steal the backpack! And that’s not paranoid either! No siree Bob! I saw it happen one time on an episode of MacGyver!

After adjusting the backpack on the floor where I could see it between the little arms where your face goes, the lady reached out and touched my back. That just seemed wrong! Janet just laughed and told me to close my eyes and relax. Psft! Easy for her to say! She was on the table next to me relaxed, content and happy while another lady was rubbing her shoulders. But honestly, I felt a little dirty all of the sudden, like I needed to go take a shower or something.

And then, then this lady put some oil on her hand and began to rub my back between my shoulder blades. I controlled myself, but felt like a puppy dog having his belly rubbed! The more she rubbed that spot on my back, the more my leg felt like it was going to start twitching back and forth uncontrollably.

Even so, I just couldn’t completely relax. One eye stayed open staring at the backpack, just in case it mysteriously moved. That spot between the shoulder blades though, OK, that spot, mmm, that spot was good! Soon my wide open eye started to close, so I reached down and stuck my fingers through the loop on the backpack just in case it grew legs and tried to walk away, or the sneaky boy was hiding behind the counter.

I glanced beside me at Janet’s table. She was content, perfectly relaxed and enjoying the daylights out of herself. She mumbled to just “relax” before she went back into lala land.

I tried to relax, I really did, but the thought just lingered about when the masseuse had last washed her hands. And then I wondered if they sanitize the massage tables every time? I hope so! Cause my face was shoved up in tight between the side arms of that massage table like a Sumo wrestler had me in a head hold under his armpit!  And gosh, I sure hope the last person on this table wasn’t all sick and germy! Or sweaty!? Gross!

I considered getting up off the sweat hog table, but then she rubbed the back of my neck with oil. Oh sweet blueberry cobbler with fat free cool whip! My eyes involuntarily rolled in the back of my head and my fingers relaxed a bit from the backpack loop. It was just, very, calming, and relaxing, and oh, mercy…yes…rub…oh yeah…right there! A deep breath and somehow, tension on the back of the neck began to leave and it was just so, so…..OK, heaven is hard to imagine. And this hasn’t been on the radar before, but I’m wondering if there are massages in heaven? I’m kinda thinking yes. Kinda thinking absolutely, yes!!

After a few minutes, I looked up at the little lagoon that the hut and tables overlooked. Truth be told, I just wanted to double check the backpack, but my eyes rolled in the back of my head again and I was out like a bad light bulb. Never mind I probably looked like a non-sun exposed, beached, albino, Baluga whale without a shirt on that table, because it was feeling good! Really, really good!

They use bad clocks in Mexico because an hour went by in about a minute and 45 seconds. Sometime or another, I’m not really sure when or how it happened, I rolled over on my back. When it was all over, she stopped rubbing and pulled the towel off my eyes. I reached up, just out of curiosity, to see if there were cucumber slices over my eyes. There weren’t, so I reached down and patted the backpack, just to make sure, you know.

All the sudden I felt a little exposed again, so I immediately put my shirt back on. Janet smiled contently and I was quite relieved when the masseuse went over and washed her hands. The next hour is a little blurry because I was still somewhere in a happy place where everything is at peace and the blueberry cobbler.

Would I recommend a massage in a hut on a Cozumel beach? Yesss! Absolutely, yesss!

Just find a good place to keep your wallet beforehand!! And make sure they spray the table down! And double check that they wash their hands! And, well, with those basics, it should be fine….probably….maybe…..OK, you’re on your own….