Oh, baby, won't you scratch my back?

every night, as part of my bedtime ritual when i was growing up, my mom would sing some short lullabies and scratch my back. i remember the happiness i felt as she gently moved her nails across my back and i would drift off to sleep. my level of childhood bliss was probably matched by her thinking "for the love of god, please go to sleep so i can spend some time with you father."

as i got older and it became absurd for a tween to have her mother scratch her back and sing day is done to her every night, i would feed my addiction by trading back scratches with my sister -- the problem with that being that you have to reciprocate which is lame. you can't just sit back and relax -- you have to share and you know what? sharing is lame. and you know what else? kids know it and that's why they don't want to do it.

for years i had a long and miserable hiatus from getting back scratches -- a period i call "the darkness." i blame any depression and misery i experienced on the lack of back scratches. but then rogray came into my life and at the beginning of our relationship he was happy to give me as many back scratches as i wanted because we were in the exciting stages of falling in love. you know -- when you think that the other person wanting back scratches all the time is like, so cute!

but oh how the years have weighed heavily on our relationship for now when i sit on the couch next to rogray and lift up the back of my shirt wordlessly requesting a back scratch i'm met with "i'm too sleepy to scratch your back" or "can i just give you a extra-long back scratch this weekend?"

but i am an addict. . .i want a back scratch all the time and he knows this. which leads us to this: rogray always has a bargaining tool. and he knows i will always submit if a back scratch is on the line.

he wants to watch meet the press or face the nation and i don't? he'll offer to scratch my back the whole time and i inevitably take him up on it. he wants to watch fox news to see how the other side thinks -- fine, as long as he scratches my back (although usually this one backfires as i get so angry and hot-blooded i start screaming at the t.v. threatening to throw it out of the window for spewing stupidity and horrific right-wing rhetoric.)

there's really no point to this to this post except to say that it's been a long time since my last back scratch and i'm going through withdrawal. . .hint hint mr. rogray.