Acupuncture is the New Exorcism

I was high as a kite when I left Spark’s office on Tuesday. “You roofied me with needles!” I accused him on my way out. The next patient, who had been sitting quietly in the waiting room, registered a moderate to high look of panic.
I am new to acupuncture, which is surprising considering my distinguished resume in seeking out and receiving holistic treatments. I had tried it once in New York, over ten years ago, at a student center, and the experience was not one that I had kept framed over my desk. “Ouch! Watch it Buster!” I remember myself saying all too often during that hour.
“Oh sorry, still learning that point.”
Like most people, I maintain a healthy dread of needles. Once, when I was about six, my mom took me to an allergist. He claimed the only way to test for the root cause of all my post toddler rashes was to stick me twelve times with a needle that, quite frankly, looked more like a pole vault.
That trauma wasn’t enough to keep my hands out of the cookie tin at the blood donation center in Manhattan though. On my way home from work I used to pass by Beth Israel Hospital on First Avenue and Sixteenth Street. One day I overheard two men raving about the free homemade chocolate chip cookies they handed out in order to keep your sugar levels up. They made these cookies sound so damn good that I figured siphoning off some extra blood and volunteering for an iron deficiency might just be worth it. And it was. Those cookies really were so damn good that I began religiously donating every three months.
I wasn’t quite sure I was ready for my acupuncture encore, but Spark has a mythical reputation, something akin to Zeus puncturing the mortals with a box of needles. I figured this was a golden winged opportunity for me to change my opinion. Beforehand, I had mistakenly jacked up on copious amounts of caffeinee, so when after he checked my pulse and reported that I had some energy that was itching to escape, I naturally thought it was somehow connected.
“You have a strong energy that needs to be released. I’m going to use ten needles.”
“Probably from the caffeine, huh?”
“Maybe a little, but this is more of a static energy.”
“What does that mean?”
“In Mandarin it translates into…evil energy.”
“Come again? I don’t think I heard you correctly. What kind of energy?”
“Evil Energy.”
I had come to acupuncture to open chakras, jumpstart tired organs and catch a little holistic buzz. I certainly wasn’t there to find out that I had somehow been impregnated with Rosemary’s baby. Spark definitely lived up to his reputation though and performed an exorcism that made me feel downright angelic. And I plan on returning as soon as he offers me some chocolate chip cookies.