The Daily Times

I just got a comment from my cohort, Amanda Greever, that I don’t hear every day.

“I’m afraid of your big guns,” she said with a slight grimace, gently moving her head from one side to the other.

In explanation, Amanda, as well as anyone who sits at a computer most of the day, gets very stiff and sore neck and shoulders occasionally that need to have the kinks ironed out. Since “Mom” has a little bit of the healing touch, I’m the one the newsroom kids come to for some kneading and pounding of those pesky knotted muscles.

Really, it’s not that much different than making bread, only for “girl shoulders,” I have to start out gently or the wimps will scream in pain. Amanda doesn’t have a high threshold for pain to begin with, so I taught her (unsuccessfully) how to find a focal point to ride through the hard part. She’s probably the only woman of my acquaintance who has been taught Lamaze breathing without having to give birth, although I still can’t get her to stop holding her breath and tensing up in anticipation of what she calls excruciating pain. I will not, since this is a family newspaper, repeat the words that normally come from her mouth as I work on her, however.

That’s what happened today. She knows her shoulders and neck feel better when I finish — and she was eagerly waiting for me to come to work so I could give her some relief — yet the process is unpleasant. For her, anyway. I can certainly get a lot of aggression out of my system by “helping.”

I know you’re wondering what the heck the “big guns” have to do with anything. Remember the girl shoulders? Well, with Amanda, you can’t just be firm right off the bat. You have to work up to the really deep tissue massage or she screams. Loudly. So, we had one session with the gentle massage (should I mention that she put a pencil in her mouth because, as she explained, she didn’t have a bullet to bite?), then a couple of hours later, when her shoulders were still hurting but not as sore, I asked if she was ready for me to “bring out the big guns.” In other words, put lots of pressure on the point that hurts most to get it to release the tension, which I think of as a wound-up spring that needs to be poked to come undone.

Warily, Amanda said she was ready.

Yes, it hurt. Yes, it helped. After screeching more unprintable words, she stood up and was able to turn her head from side to side rather than trudge through the newsroom like a much cuter Frankenstein’s monster in knee-high boots.

“You really need to charge for this,” she said after telling me I scared her. Nope. Anything I can do for the young ’uns in here to help them through the day is fine by me. Most aren’t near their real moms, so I’m standing in — and moms don’t charge for taking care of the kids. I’d hope the other moms would do the same for my brats if I couldn’t be close by.

I’m pretty much a full-service stand-in mom, too. I give the young ’uns a sympathetic ear, chastisement when they need it, hugs and encouragement — and a good swift kick in the rear, sometimes literally, if they are short enough and my knee is bending properly. There really are some things you just don’t talk about with your “real” mom, after all. ... I keep all these things to myself and don’t judge the kids, no matter what they tell me and no matter how much I want to shake some sense into them.

I occasionally bring them food, provide sewing services and remove splinters from sore fingers. On one occasion, I was presented with a tape measure and the request to measure an “adopted” son’s waist for a pair of pants.

In return, they take entirely too much interest in my social life, tease me mercilessly, explain the meanings of certain terms that I, in my relatively sheltered life, have never heard — and take great delight in seeing just how far they can push my buttons before I erupt. So far, Entertainment Editor Steve Wildsmith is the hands-down winner.

I do love all my children, though, no matter how disagreeable they may be, and I respect them as the consummate professionals they are in their jobs. You couldn’t find a finer, more talented group of young men and women anywhere.

Even Wildsmith.

Linda Albert is Sunday Life editor and a staff writer for The Daily Times. You may contact her at 981-1168 or (linda.albert@thedailytimes.com)

You must be logged in to Facebook to comment. If you're not logged in to Facebook, a login window will open when you click "comment". Or you can log in now. You may need to refresh your page after logging in via that link.