"Mike, are you ready?"
I heard my mother-in-law shouting from our living room. She had been in there for ages, setting up the thing some movers brought over earlier. I took the rest of the sandwich I was munching on and wandered in there, wondering what she had actually been doing all this time.
"What's up, Christine?"
"Still not calling me 'mom', huh?" she replied, slightly annoyed that I still hadn't adopted what she saw as a typical family tradition.
"Uhm, well..."
"Never mind, that's not what I wanted right now. Here, what do you think?"
Over by the wall was a big chair. Really big. So big, in fact, that she'd had to move most of the furniture over to the other side of the room to make space for it. It looked really thick and heavy, with solid frames all around. Made in dark brown leather, with some kind of footrest built into the frame, it now stood some distance away from the T.V., with only a small table for company. Resting on the table was a remote control, connected to the chair by a cable.
"A massage chair. So... this is what you wanted my help with?" I asked.
"Yep. What do you think?"
"Well, it's... big."
"Or your living room is small."
"No, it's big."
"Well, it
is
the top model. Oh, and I've put it here so you can sit in it and get a massage while you're watching T.V."
"Cool. So what was it I was going to do again?"
"Just test it."
"Right."
"Thoroughly. That's why I had it moved over from
my
house to yours."
"Oh, so you've tried it already?"
"Of course. I've been using this thing for weeks."
"So why do you need
me
to try it?"
"Not
try
it.
Test
it. Like I told you last week, I get a commission on each one I sell, and although I've tested it quite a bit myself, I want to know what an outsider thinks about it. Someone who hasn't read the manual. Someone who hasn't been to the official manufacturers' sales course. I want to know what the average customer will think of it when they try it. I've been told what I
should say
to potential buyers, but I want to know what the buyers
should know
."
"Know your product. I get it."
"Exactly."
She reached into a bag on the floor and put some brochures and papers on the table, along with a thick book that said "Manual" on the cover.
"Are those ... the instructions?" I asked, hesitantly.
"Yeah, that's just the sort of thing I wanted you to check for me, actually." she replied.
"Oh."
What, did she want me to check the spelling or something? Me, an army sergeant? What do
I
know about grammar? I could feel my heart sinking as I thought about the amount of time it would take to read through that brick. Christine, though, was ahead of me on that one.
"Obviously, nobody's actually gonna
read
this thing. So, what I wanna know from you is: are the controls intuitive enough? Can people just sit down and click their way through the menus without getting all confused?"
"Ah, I get it." I said, relieved.
"Then there's another thing ... the settings. You gotta test those, see if they're fit for all kinds of people. The height adjustments, the auto programs, the seating position, the ... everything."
"That'll take time, I guess."
"Yep. Days, weeks, depending on how much you use it. There are over a dozen different programs in this thing!" she said, excitedly.
"Good thing I'm home on leave for a while, then."
"Exactly. So, ready to hop in?"
"Oh, wait... now?"
"Sure, why not? No time like the present. Shoes off. In you go."
I did as she said and placed my feet in the footrest before sitting back in the massive chair.
"A bit tight." I said as I squeezed myself into it.
"That's 'cause you're a hunk with muscles on your muscles. Hang on a sec."
She walked around to the back and adjusted something. A couple of straps were pulled and two leather cushions on either side were moved back slightly, giving me a bit more room for my shoulders.
"Ahkay, cool."
"Your arms go in there." she said and pointed to the insides of the armrests - which clearly weren't really armrests, then.
I slid my arms in there and felt them being enveloped by some kind of leather sleeves, like I was wearing a thick jacket or something.
Christine stood beside the chair and picked up the remote off the table. She then took me through the buttons.
"This one starts it, then you gotta wait for the thing to detect where your body is..."
I could hear the electric motors in the chair buzzing around, and I felt a series of lumps moving up and down my back. There were clearly some kind of balls connected to something inside it, and when the balls moved, they pushed against my body and massaged the areas they moved against. After a few seconds, the machine asked for instructions.
"First you set the shoulder height. Just try different ones until you find the one that feels best. Then you choose the program. How about starting with the automatic ones?"
"Sure." I replied.
She clicked a few buttons, showing me how I could select the program I wanted. Then she suddenly changed her mind, saying:
"Actually, I shouldn't show you. You do it. See how easy it is."
It was actually very easy. I selected one of the auto programs, sat back and relaxed, and if I wanted to change the tilt of the back or footrest, there were big buttons on the remote, clearly marked with arrows. The chair was pretty good too. The rolling balls went up and down my back in all sorts of motions, depending on which program I chose. It also massaged my legs by pumping air into the leather cushions on each side, effectively squeezing my calf muscles for about ten seconds before releasing the grip. My arms got the same treatment; the leather "sleeves" being pumped full of air in sequence, first squeezing my upper arms, then the lower - first the right arm, then the left.
"Each program lasts 20 minutes. You can stop them early, of course, by clicking the 'off' button here."
"Right ... could we do this later, then? I was gonna watch the game..."
"Well, you can watch it and keep testing, can't you? I'm eager to hear what you think ... In fact, let me get my laptop and we can get started right away?"
It was framed as a question, but definitely wasn't one. Christine ran out and I heard the door slam behind her. She lived just across the road from us. Initially, when we moved in here, I had thought it was a bit of a curse to have my mother-in-law live literally a stone's throw away. On reflection, though, the benefits outweighed the downsides. She respected our privacy and it was pretty useful to have her around if we needed help with the kids or something.
She was back in a flash, sitting down on the floor with her legs crossed and her laptop in her lap. Then she asked for comments on everything from the feel of the massage to the settings on the remote. As it turned out, while the automatic programs were pretty easy to set up, it was more difficult figuring out how you could program the chair in detail. There were all sorts of settings and tweaks you could make, but I couldn't work out how to select them properly. As I explained what the issues were, Christine eagerly took notes on her laptop.
"This is great, keep going. What was the problem with the shoulders?"
"Well, the remote has a thing where you can change the 'shoulder width', right? But when I try to change it, nothing happens?"
"Oh, yeah, it has to be done before the program starts. And it doesn't work on the auto programs."
"Ah, right. Okay. And what about this tilt thing - the back can clearly go back farther, but when I try to tilt the legs down, I can't have the back horizontal?"
"No, that's true. There's a maximum angle between the back, the seat and the footrest. When the back gets tilted all the way back, the legs have to come up a bit as well."
"Okay. I'll get the hang of it."
Over the next few days, my mother-in-law was practically living in our house. It was actually pretty nice having her here to keep me company, since my wife had taken our kids camping for a week. I also appreciated her cooking, which was a lot better than mine. She also seemed to enjoy coming over just to chat. I felt like we had been getting closer since I came home after my tour. Most of the time, though, she had me test her massage chair, taking notes whenever I had something to say.
One evening, I was reclined in the chair while enjoying one of the automatic programs that massaged my upper back muscles. I was also beginning to enjoy the sleeves that squeezed my arms; having been working out pretty hard lifting weights in the basement, it felt really good to have my biceps and forearms massaged like this. I hadn't really thought about it before, but whenever I had gotten a massage, it was mostly on my back and shoulders - which was great, but I was really beginning to like having my arms done as well.
The balls in the back were rolling continuously up and down along my spine, and the gentle buzzing of the motors made me feel relaxed and sleepy. And a bit horny. It had started to happen occasionally, this. I just felt so relaxed and enjoyed the feeling of being pampered in this massive chair, that I started to get an erection that began throbbing away in my pants. Not that I could do anything about it right then, but ...
"Enjoying yourself?" I heard Christine's voice from across the room - she'd let herself in and joined me in the living room.