By Staff
Each day I make my way through life here in the big city of Macon, Georgia. I travel to many different parts of the city over the course of time, and have discovered many interesting and unique things about it.
Macon has a rich musical heritage, a great artistic history, and is the home of unquestionably the best hot dogs in the world, Nu-Way's "all-the-way" dogs.
Macon enjoys the Ocmulgee River as a passer through, boasts an eye-catching feast of hot air balloons each spring at the Cherry Blossom Festival, and some of the very best softball in the world is played right here.
But, even with all these plusses, I've discovered while out and about that there's something else that apparently many of our citizens are enjoying. Something else to bring forward for discussion today. Something else that few people are aware of, but something that's thriving right here in our community.
Have I piqued y'alls curiosity just a little? Maybe more than just a little? Well, never let it be said that I deliberately hold out on my readers.
Friends, I've discovered this neat little secret about Macon, this neat little factoid, and I'm gonna share it with all of you now.
We here in Macon love to be massaged.
It's easy to understand, I think. We work hard, stress builds up as a result of that work, and massages are a great way to relieve said stress.
A talented masseuse can work wonders on a weary body, wonders that people are willing to pay large sums of money for. Don't think so? Well, let's check the facts. We have, per our latest phone directory, sixteen establishments in Macon that employ licensed massage therapists. That's commendable, and shows that the demand for their services is growing. But, here's something even more exciting -- we love massages here so much that the demand for them exceeds the supply of licensed massage therapists.
As a result, new massage establishments are popping up all over town to fill the void.
Yes, I know y'all might point out that these new places are not staffed with licensed massage therapists, and y'all would be right. But, they offer some new and exciting services to make up for this slight deficiency.
For example, the three new ones that I've noticed over on Riverside Drive employ fancy neon signs in their windows to attract customers. You can partake of cutting edge massage techniques like "deep tissue massage," "exciting oil therapy," and "focused stress relief."
Man, with a menu of choices like that, these unlicensed places might soon outstrip the licensed ones in terms of their overall revenue potential. And isn't that an exciting possibility?
I've personally done some limited drive-by research on these unlicensed places, and I can only detect a couple of potential problems. First, for some reason, they don't seem to have many parking spaces out in front of their establishments. I'd think they'd want everyone to see how many happy customers they're serving, but apparently that's not the case.
On the other hand, maybe, just maybe, they don't want to outwardly brag about themselves or openly show off by displaying lots of happy and contented customers going in and out of their doors.
That must be it. The only other problem I can see is that these unlicensed places, for some unknown reason, have heavy smoked glass all around them which makes it impossible for anyone to see inside.
Admittedly, this could be deemed a tad suspect, but my good friend Greg "The Hammer" Berryhill pointed out to me that this is just a method to insure that the masseuses inside are protected from the harmful rays of the sun.
Man, these places are really on the ball, aren't they?
And there you have it -- Macon, Georgia, a fast rising star in the field of massage therapy.
Something we can all definitely puff out our chests about. In fact, with all this newfound interest in massages, we could be in great shape if the Olympics ever decided to add massages as a sporting event. Think of all the people that would come here if Olympic massaging competitions were staged in Macon.
Think of all the new unlicensed massage places that would spring up.
Think of…wait, even I have limits, you know.