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The neck stretcher as a response to an embarrassing self-interrogation

Michael Restin
27.12.2022
Translation: machine translated

The Quick Aid neck stretcher is supposed to bring relaxation. First, however, it puts me on the rack. Welcome to the basement dungeon of my head cinema.

The most impressive museum visit of my childhood was to the Medieval Crime Museum in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Cellar vaults. Department of Beginning of Proceedings, Trial of Evidence and Torture. I am surprised that this visit comes to mind many years later in connection with a small plastic relaxer. Which is because it's called a "neck stretcher". It's not far to the stretching bench in my brain. One Google search later, my neck is even more tense than it already is. Good thing those days are over, at least for us.

Finsteres Mittelalter: Eine Streckbank mit drei «gespickten Hasen».
Finsteres Mittelalter: Eine Streckbank mit drei «gespickten Hasen».
Source: gemeinfrei

The torture device I regularly sit in front of is called a computer and its effect is much more subtle. On the one hand, I slump in front of it for hours. On the other hand, it overloads my head with options and information. I learn a few things about stretching benches. For example, that the spiked torture rollers used on them are called "spiked rabbit" and were used in "painful interrogation". All because I mentally took a wrong turn at the Quick Aid neck stretcher.

Embarrassing, embarrassing

In those days, embarrassing was still taken literally. Today, pain comes insidiously and effeminately, in the form of tension. And we encounter it more softly. With massage rollers or neck stretchers.

Verspannte Neuzeit: Nackenstrecker und andere Instrumente.
Verspannte Neuzeit: Nackenstrecker und andere Instrumente.

Mostly only for a few minutes a day and with remorse: What have I done to myself again? Can I straighten out in ten minutes what I screwed up in the 12 hours before, slouched in front of the screen and bent on my smartphone? Is some hard plastic with metal dots under the cervical spine a rip-off or does the indulgence trade work?
.
At first it hurts a bit to take the neck stretcher out of the package. Because there is very little on it. But after I've spent a few minutes lying on it, it does what it's supposed to do: It feels good.

Das ist alles: zweimal Hartplastik, ein paar Metallpunkte und ein grünes Schaumstoffband.
Das ist alles: zweimal Hartplastik, ein paar Metallpunkte und ein grünes Schaumstoffband.

It's hard to argue against feelings. Rows of people from the community find: Yep, it was a good idea to spend money on this. "Product does what it promises" - "insider tip against neck pain" - "it works", they write freely about their experiences with the neck stretcher. 30 reviews. 4.6 stars.

Yes, it works. The neck stretcher stretches your neck and doesn't pinch nearly as much as its appearance makes it seem. So it belongs to the ever-shrinking group of things that are simply named after their function. That feels good, too. And doesn't read as cynically as "spiked rabbit". Names like this "suggest, if not mockery, then at least a cruel joke, which one allowed oneself against the deplorable victims", a temporary witness noted.

Victims of their own habits

Today, fortunately, most of us are only victims of our own habits, which we can admit to and take action against. The question of whether you belong to the target group of a neck stretcher can only be answered by yourself. In an embarrassing self-questioning session. Tense neck? Yes? Too much of an inner pig to actively exercise? Yes? Then of course a tension reliever can be helpful. It only made me tense at first. With wellness on my mind, I ended up in the torture chamber of my head - I should urgently change my mind.

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Simple writer and dad of two who likes to be on the move, wading through everyday family life. Juggling several balls, I'll occasionally drop one. It could be a ball, or a remark. Or both.


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