Daily Prompt: Isn’t Your Face Red

When was the last time you were embarrassed? How do you react to embarrassment? 

I usually do stuff that I will end up getting embarrassed over quite a lot… Well, embarrassed if people actually know what I did / said etc.

Funnily enough, I am generally quite self-deprecating because I’m usually trying to tell a funny story, or make somebody laugh etc, so I find that at times I’ll end up telling an embarrassing story. However, in saying that, I do have my moments when I get highly embarrassed about things, especially if it’s something that’s brought up, that I wanted to remain private. Those kind of things usually catch me right off guard, and more often than not, I just want the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

And, of course, when I’m having these moments, everybody else around me is like,

The last time I embarrassed myself was during a recent trip overseas. Well, it wasn’t what I did that was necessarily embarrassing, but moreso the fact that I actually told other people about that was embarrassing… and so now I’m going to share that story with you…

So here I am overseas on this work trip. I had a free couple of hours, so I thought to myself ‘I think that I might go get a massage. It’s long overdue and I’m feeling quite tight and sore from all the exercise I’ve done in the last couple of days’. 

So I figure seeing as how I’ve seen a number of small asian-operated massage places around town, I’ll try one that looks the cleanest and get like a 90min massage to really work on getting all those knots out. So I go to one that I had set my sights on previously.

…please come back in 30 mins.

Bitch, I don’t have 30 mins.

So I go to another place that I saw the other day… except this one has two locations in the same complex, so this should be fine.

Please come back in 30 mins.

Oh come on!!

So I head to the other location… only to find there’s actually nobody there.

DAMN IT!!

Time to find another place… I know I saw another one around here somewhere… Meanwhile, I’m checking the time, and by this stage, I’ll be lucky if I’m able to get an hour in. I find another place (HOORAY!!) who then asks me to come back in 15-20mins… (SERIOUSLY?!?!)

So now, I’m thinking that I’m not even going to have time to get a massage at all before I have to be back at the gym for a class at 6pm. By this stage it’s 4:40pm and I’ll still need to  go back to the hotel, change, and then race to the gym in order to make my class.

I’m already starting to feel defeated and thinking I should just go to the hotel when I see a sign for massage in some arcade. By this stage, frankly, I don’t care where it is, I just want a massage.

I walk up to the sign outside the door and checking their services and times and I hear this ‘HERRO!… You rike a massage today? How you feel?’

‘Oh, Hi… yes, I was wondering if I could get my lower back and my flutes done for 30 minutes?’

And he looked at me completely puzzled. So in true language-barrier-charades style, I pointed to what I wanted to massage, and he finally understood what I was saying. He lead me inside and took me into this room with a couple of massage tables and asks me to strip down to my briefs.

I was already beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable as it was in full view of everybody else in the main room having head / neck / feet massages, but he quickly pulled a curtain across to allow me some privacy.

The massage was okay. The pressure was good, but could’ve been better. I already had asked him twice to increase the pressure, and the poor guy couldn’t handle it, I think he was getting more of a workout from it. Every now and then he’d find a different spot and I’d make a small groan sound from the pain and he’d always reply with something like ‘Ahh yes, painful because so tight… so, so, so tigh. You need regurar massage!’

So he attacks one side of my back, then the tops of both sides of my glutes… but not the other side of my back. WHen he finished I questioned him about it, and he said that I only asked for one side.

Seriously, who goes in and asks for a lower-back massage, but just on one side??

Anyway. So I’m starting to stress out about the time and then all of a sudden the old Chinese woman who works there is talking to the guy, then she comes over to me, barks something at me in Chinese, grabs my arm and drags me back to the table.

She continues to talk to me in Chinese, and I keep looking at the guy for some kind of translation, and he’s not saying anything, so I have to remind him I DON’T SPEAK CHINESE, and he just looks at me as though I’ve just babbled something incoherently.

So I look at this old lady, who looks like she’s about 80, and slowly tell her I. DON’T. SPEAK. CHINESE!! and so she makes out a few audible words and then starts to talk to the guy, who then finally begins to translate.

Turns out she wants to give me some free Chinese medicine… so she gets me to lay back down on the table, pokes around on my back and then shows me a small vile of white liquid. She keeps talking to me in Chinese, asking me all kinds of questions, to which I just don’t answer because I’ve know idea what she’s saying.

She sprinkles some of the white liquid on my lower back and then covers it with a length of cling-film. She prompts me to sit up and the guy tells me that she’s just put some medicine on my back, and I might end up with a small warming sensation. I should keep it on for forty-minutes.

Bitch, I don’t have 40mins. I have to GO!!

Then as I’m starting to put my top back on, I start to feel this warming sensation… which begins to get more and more intense. Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, it feels like my back is on FIRE. Searing white-hot fire. It’s like Tiger Balm but the real shit that you can’t buy in Australia, you have to buy it in Thailand or something…

So whilst I’m sitting there thinking that I’m getting third-degree burns, she grabs my arm and takes me back into the main room and pushes me down into a chair…

…to give me a quick head / neck / shoulder massage… Oh, and to contort my body into position they’re not designed to be twisted into!! Ten minutes later, I’m paying my money, stressing out that I’m now going to be late for my class.

Then I’m outta there and power-walking down the main street to the hotel. I’m sending Hulk a string of messages recapping what just happened, and asking him to get some things ready for me… and getting no reply. He’s probably asleep. DAMN IT!!

Then all of a sudden I start feeling hot and sweaty. Where’s one of the primary places people sweat?? Oh that’s right, their lower back! And who’s just had the white-hot liquid of fire spread all over their back?? Yeah… so the burning sensation of fire is starting to rapidly intensify, and then I can feel it beginning to make it’s way even further down my back.

Suddenly, It’s between the top of my butt cheeks. I’ve developed crack sweat. Which, any other time is bad enough. However, crack sweat that’s coming from the white-hot elixir of fire, is a whooooole other story.

Have you ever tried to put something like Tiger Balm, or Deep Heat onto your anus? No? Oh, right, BECAUSE IT HAS NO RIGHT TO EVER BE IN OR NEAR THAT AREA, EVER!! Well, I wasn’t that fortunate, and now my arse, literally, felt like it was on fire. Trying to keep up my pace back to the hotel whilst I feel like there is fire in the rear of my jocks is probably one of the worst experiences ever (without actually causing an injury).

Still haven’t heard back from Hulk, and I’ve got 15mins to get upstairs, change and get to the gym by 6pm.

I race upstairs and sure enough, Hulk is fast asleep. GOD DAMN IT!! Then I launch into whirlwind mode… Literally, tearing around the hotel room packing a pack, filling drink bottles, prepping a protein shake and then I just freeze. I can’t take it anymore. I grab a towel, wet it, get completely naked and rip off the cling film from my back and attempt to wipe off the fire-liquid as much as I can.

Here’s a tip… it actually makes it worse!!

But I didn’t have time to worry about it. Nothing was going to make me miss this class. NOTHING!!

So I get my stuff together and race downstairs and off to the gym… only to get there and find out that the class before mine is running 45mins late.

…what?

After all that.

After all that stressing out, I have so much time up my sleeve. I should’ve gone to have a shower whilst I waited, but I didn’t take a towel with me. So instead I had to sit there and wait, whilst my arse was on fire.

It was excruciating, but then when my class started, I completely stopped thinking about it. I was too in the moment to think about it or even care.

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/daily-prompt-red/

Daily Prompt: Safety First

Share the story of a time you felt unsafe.

Jeebus, where do I begin on this one.

Let’s just say, that when I was younger, I have found myself in several not-so-pleasant situations. One of them quite serious, to the point it involved the police and somewhat of an emotional breakdown, but that’s not one that I’m prepared to share right now.

Hmmm, actually, now that I’m thinking about some of the other hair-raising situations I’ve been in, I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable talking about them either… Perhaps because they’re the kind of situations that generally you wouldn’t really want other people knowing. Kind of like a secret shame that will probably go with me to the grave – well, unless I write my memoirs on my death bed, and then everything will be out in the open. And boy wouldn’t that be full of juicy details!

Allow me to tell you the story of one of the times that I went back to Redneckville during school holidays…

SO, from memory I was home at mum’s place for the Christmas break. Seeing as how it’s summer here in Australia in December, and this was 10 years ago, and the country, it was one of those times where, during the day, the temperature would peak around 44-45 degrees celsius, so yeah, it was HOT!!

Now, I think this particular evening, my best friend at the time, B-Girl, and I had gone out to catch up with a group of her friends from high-school. I knew them, but half of them were all cunts to me in high school and bullied me for several years, so I would have rather watch them fall off a balcony to their death, or at least hideous disfigurement, than spend an entire fucking evening with them.

SO on this night, B-Girl and I head out to this wine bar we used to love going to (not that I actually drink, but it was just a cool hip little venue) and we’re upstairs on the balcony with these people. I’m doing my best to ignore half of them, (whilst visualising various ways I would like to see them die or seriously injure themselves) when all of a sudden a fight breaks out. A couple of the guys had called out to a bunch of guys on the street, being the smartarses they are, and then all of a sudden 3 or 4 of these guys were up on the balcony having a confrontation.

Some of the girls were trying to diffuse the situation, but the drunken arrogant wankers weren’t having a bar of it.

Voices started being raised; guys were getting in each other’s faces; girls were failing at calming anybody down and were leaving the balcony; and whilst all this was going on, I couldn’t WAIT for the punches to start being thrown, because I knew these guys would end up getting their arses kicked… and I was going to enjoy watching every minute of it.

…sure enough, within a matter of seconds, the first punch was thrown, and all hell breaks loose.

Now, if you’ve never actually been witness to a punch on, let alone a group punch on, then it’s an surreal event. The sound of knuckles hitting cheekbones and eye sockets. The whack sound that it makes as skin slaps skin. Watching bottles go flying, chairs go flying, saliva and hair everywhere – it’s like it happens all in slow-motion, just to ensure that you are able to visually take in everything that is happening in front of you. I’m actually surprised that there wasn’t a glassing incident.

Sure enough, security come bounding up the stairs and pull the guys off each other, and take the 4 guys from outside, back downstairs for questioning, whilst a couple of security guys remain up on the balcony to confront the geniuses who just had their arses handed to them.

Sidenote: the BEST bit of the whole thing was when Dumbfuck The Ringleader turns to me, and has the nerve to say to me “oh, and what about you, fucking fag, you didn’t even step in to fucking help us at all”. After taking a moment just to process the mind-numbing ridiculousness of that statement, and who it was coming from, I looked up at Dumbfuck and calmly responded, ‘I’m sorry, but did you just say what I think you’re saying? You, the one person who made my life a living fucking hell all through high school, YOU, HONESTLY THINK THAT I WOULD DO *ANYTHING* to help you. Let me make this abundantly clear to you, I’m actually quite disappointed that you aren’t being carted away in an ambulance right now, because lets be honest, nothing would make me happier. As for what just happened, you fucking brought that on yourself. You think that you’re going to get through life being able to hang shit on people and there not be any consequences? You caused that fight. You threw the first punch. You’re the reason Druggy Long-Hair has a possibly broken nose, and you have the nerve to stand there and feel pissed off AT ME, for not coming to your defense. WHAT A FUCKING JOKE. YOU ARE A FUCKING JOKE!! If anything, if I did actually choose to be foolish enough to get involved, I would have been on their side instead, and I would have fucking glassed you right in the face, and then maybe pushed you off the balcony onto the footpath and hopefully shattered your spine, but I made the choice to not get involved. (Police arrive upstairs) and look, now the cops are here, and I’ll gladly give my statement, and making it abundantly clear that those other guys were merely defending themselves. You started this. You deserve the consequences. I hope you fucking die.’

And then I left.

I walked back downstairs and gave my statement to an officer, along with a couple of others, and then B-Girl and I left.

…and we’re not even at the scary bit yet!!

SO, after all that drama, B-Girl and I went went a couple of doors down to the servo for a late night ice-cream, and then I decided to walk B-Girl home. By this stage it was about 2 or 3am. We were walking along this road which runs parallel to the horse-racing field, and as we approached a motel, we saw a couple of dogs walking towards us. As we continued along the footpath, the dogs walked under a streetlight, and we both realised that these were big dogs… and I mean BIG DOGS. I’m not entirely sure of the breed, but it was like the size of full-grown German Shepard, but a lot more fierce and aggressive.

B-Girl and I stopped. Then the dogs stopped.

They were watching us. We were watching them. B-Girl whispered, ‘holy fuck. What are we going to do?’

‘I dunno. Maybe we should cross the street?’, I replied and we slowly walked across the road. Although the dogs were at the other end of the block, we could see them quite clearly.

The dogs crossed the street as well.

‘Oh. Holy. Shit.’, I whispered, ‘Now what the fuck do we do?‘.

‘Maybe we just turn around and walk back towards the Main Street, and they will just go somewhere else?’, suggested B-Girl.

We turned around and started walking back the way we had come, and then we heard barking. Not like a normal dog bark, but the kid of bark you really don’t want to hear at 3am, when you’re on your own and you’re not the best runner. We stopped, and held each other’s hand. ‘What do we do? B, WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO? OH MY GOD, THEY’RE GOING TO ATTACK US! WE’RE GOING TO BE FUCKING KILLED!!’. Clearly, I’d already decided this, and had given up all hope.

‘Let’s walk through the motel and lose them’, suggested B-Girl. We turned and crossed the road, and walked back towards the motel and walked through the entrance. ‘Worst case scenario, they follow us. I say we lock ourselves behind the pool fence, because they won’t be able to get in!’. Just as I said that, we saw the pool fence. A small child could easily fit through the bars of the fence, so a giant man-eating dog could definitely fit in there. We instantly scrapped that idea.

Behind the rear of the motel, the carpark opened out onto this vast area of empty land. Part of it had been turned into a kids playground, and the rest was all vacant land which ran behind the entire blocks houses. We started walking through there, and figured, we couldn’t hear any barking, the dogs must have just kept on going down the street. Right??

Wrong.

So very, very wrong.

As we’re walking through the dead dry grasses on this land, we see one of the dogs come back out on the footpath. It stopped. Barked a couple of times, and then sat there, watching us.

At that moment, the most terrifying thought was WHERE WAS THE OTHER DOG?? I couldn’t see it, and I couldn’t hear it. My mind started racing a thousand-miles and hour. The dog approached the grassed, and I picked up some big rocks and threw them at the dog. I must have hit it because it let out a yelp and walked off. Feeling somewhat relieved, we continued across this area of land, and turned left into another street.

2 blocks from B-Girls house. THANK FUCK FOR THAT. Feeling that we were home-free, we started to have a little giggle about how scared we both were… then we heard the breathing behind us.

Half a block away from us, just near the corner was one of the dogs. It began barking and then growling. Shit was about to get VERY real, VERY rapidly, and we were both trying to work out a strategy for avoiding it. Then it started walking towards us. Oh fuck. As it approached the block of land, the other dog joined him. Oh double fuck!! THEN, they started running towards us.

By this stage we both know we couldn’t outrun them. The next house we passed, we ducked into their side walkway, and ran into their backyard. At the backyard, there was a small grassy patch, a woodshed and a garage. We jumped into the woodshed, and like clockwork, the two dogs came running into the backyard. They came running right up to the screens on the woodshed, gowling and barking like crazy.

Suddenly a couple of lights in the house turn on, and the outside light turns on.

The dogs stop barking, and start at the backdoor of the house. A man walks out and picks up a shovel. He starts swinging at the dogs, who start going wild. Oh great. Now we get to witness a guy being attacked and mauled to death buy a couple of crazy dogs. Perfect end to the night.

B-Girl and I look at each other in terror and we hear this almighty WHACK!! Immediately followed by some yelping.

‘You kids alright in there?’, asked the man. ‘THey’re both gone, so you can get outta my woodshed if you please. It’s quite late, afterall!’ WE explained what happened, thanked the man and continued back on our way to B-Girls’ house. Walking along the footpath, we hear a dog barking.

Then again…

and again.

By now, we’ve decided on a very quick walk back to her place, and I’ll either just stay over or catch a taxi back to mum’s – a couple of blocks away.

Just as we approach B-Girls street, we hear something behind us. It’s getting louder and closer, and all very quickly ‘Fuck this. I’m not taking any chances. B-Girl, we need to fucking move. Let’s just fucking run!’. And run we did. I kept looking behind me as the dog started getting closer and closer, and then before I knew it, we were running towards B-Girls front door – watching the front yard like a hawk through the windows of the lounge room.

Sure enough, both dogs have found each other and they walk straight past B-Girls place.

‘Do you wanna just stay here the night, or do you wanna catch a cab?’, B-Girl queried.

‘No, I’ll just give it 10 mins and then I’ll walk home. It’s quicker and much cheaper. I’ll be fine’. Needless to say, those 10 mins became almost 30mins before I actually seriously considered walking out that front door. ‘Coast is clear’, I ploclaimed. I gave B-Girl a hug and a kiss and closed the front door behind me, and set off back to Mum’s place.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/daily-prompt-safety-first/