Shiatsu is Japanese for “rearrange the pain”.

So I drive my mother to her favorite store where she has to pick up a prescription. The pharmacy has a demo model of the Homedics SBM-200 Therapist Select Shiatsu Back Massager set up, nobody’s using it, and my back’s hurting, so I decide to give it a shot. As it turns out, my crooked spine (I have uncorrected scoliosis) appears to make me anatomically incompatible with this gizmo and its two “moving massage mechanisms”. As soon as one “moving massage mechanism” loosens one part of my back, another “moving massage mechanism” slams down directly on my slightly off-kilter spine. Lose some pain, gain some pain — It’s a zero-sum massage. From now on, I guess I have to stick to getting massages from people who can actually see where my spine is.n