She smiled. “You can buy one with different vibration settings and intensities,” she said confidentially, “and some of them are smart devices. Like, there’s one that gets stronger the harder you push it against yourself.” I nodded, rapt.
She wheeled her chair around to face her computer and tapped out a few words on the keyboard. The monitor was soon animated with a catalogue of options. “It’s not like the old days. They’re really quiet now. They used to be so loud, if you were using it in your bedroom, people sitting downstairs would practically feel the buzzing through the ceiling and know what you were up to.”
My eyes ran over the different varieties, which seemed endless. “Where can I find…?”
“Oh, anywhere! This is a specialty site, but you can even get them on Amazon.” She pointed to one with ten different heads and a carrying case. “This one, it charges with a USB cable. Easy. And you can pack up and take to work with you, go hide in your office and use it during a break in the day.”
I blushed. “Oh, I’m not sure about that…” I looked again at the screen. The one in question had a big ball of a head and grippable body. Now, obviously – get your head out of the gutter – what we were looking at was electric massagers. I was meeting with the senior physiotherapist, and she and I wanted to figure out how I could stop taking up my time and hers, as well as space in the best ward in the hospital (the only one with both heating and air conditioning! Sooooo modern! God bless the NHS). The plan was to use this device to lessen the cording and radiation fibrosis in my arm and down my side – and to do it at home.
Electric massagers are cheap. I ordered one from Amazon right away. I decided not to splurge on the carrying case, but I did get one with changeable heads and a long-lasting battery. My new toy!
When it arrived, I opened the package, chose a head like a fuzzy golf ball, put it together, and pulled off my top. I lay down on my couch, and, using my left hand, opened a tin of bergamot-scented balm and spread it thickly under my right arm and down to the wrist. I put in my AirPods to listen to the week’s episode of Unholy: Two Jews on the News, my go-to podcast. When I turned on the electric massager, however, the buzzing was too loud to hear a word of Jonathan Freedland and Yonit Levy sparring over Israel. And this was a quiet version! I took out my AirPods. I would just think about something… what? What? My mind went blank.
Take 2. I turned on the massage gun and pressed it against my skin. I was going to think about… Zzzzzzzzz! The intensity made my teeth chatter. I lowered the power from 30 (max) to 20 and tried again. Fine, fine, zzzzz! You can always tell when it hits a cord because a tingle runs the whole length of your arm. It’s like having a shoulder-to-fingertips funny bone that you keep banging against the wall. I pressed the massage gun in each spot for 20 seconds then moved to the next.
After a minute, I felt done. I was bored and it wasn’t very pleasant. This was nothing like a session at the hospital with my physiotherapist, where she worked through the tight tissue as we talked about trips we’d taken, religious similarities (she’s Muslim), childhoods, politics, siblings, university experiences, everything. With her, the time just disappears. Not so with my new toy.
Oh well. Not great. I sat up and decided I would try again another day. Maybe. I opened the box and got ready to pack the massager away. Cheap, but maybe a waste of money? Then I hesitated. The house was unusually quiet; husband was at work, kids at school. I looked at my new toy once more. And it popped into my head that perhaps there were alternative uses for it…
