Bonkers about a good arm scratching

By Doan Nguyen

December 27, 2004 | "It has probably been my toughest semester of my college career," said Julie Mason, a senior majoring in Asian studies at USU.

Mason packed her underwear into her suitcase. It was finals week and she was eager to fly home to Fairfax, Va., for Christmas Break.

Mason's room was neatly organized. Books about Asian politics were vertically stacked on her dresser near several candles with unblackened wicks. Next to her books and candles was an object that looked like a long wooden fork with a handle.

"That's my arm scratcher," Mason said as she tucked her auburn hair behind her ears.

The "arm" scratcher still had the merchandise tag attached to it. With a blue ballpoint pen someone had scratched out the word "back" the label and replaced it "arm." Mason said she received it as a present for her 20th birthday from a friend.

People have obsessive quirks about them, such as picking their noses, twirling their hair or chewing on their nails. Mason's quirk is having her arm scratched by other people. Mason picked her "arm scratcher" up and set it down without packing it into her suitcase. She said that she doesn't usually use her arm scratcher because using it doesn't give her the same sensation as having the gentle and slow running of fingernails down the inside of her wrists and arms.

"I like it because it gives me a tingly sensation," she said. Mason said her family and friends get annoyed with her persistent requests to scratch her arms. She usually requests them on relaxing evenings while watching movies or bored sitting in church.

"Julie has her arm scratched so much that it takes her mother an hour to vacuum the dry skin that falls off," said Mason's father, Jerry, jokingly in a phone interview.

Mason said she doesn't remember when her arm scratching obsession started, but thinks it started at an early age. She said she grew up the youngest of six siblings and her older brothers and sisters would always have her scratch their backs.

"I was their slave," she said.

Mason said at home she sometimes asks her 4-year-old niece to scratch her arm.

"Now, I have an arm slave," Mason said and giggled.

"My niece does my arm for like four seconds, while in return I have to do hers for like 10 minutes," she said.

Mason said she has had her arm scratched by her friends in "weird" places and times, such as at a senate hearing session on Medicare at the Capitol. Mason was visiting a friend doing an internship in Washington D.C.

"While getting my arm scratched, we were making fun of Hilary Clinton's orange dress suit," Mason said.

Mason continued to pack her things after turning on some music from the laptop on her desk. The song was "Pictures of You" by the Cure.

"This song is about looking back on an ended relationship, which sometimes is the best time, but also the hardest," Mason said.

Mason's former boyfriend, Jed Maddocks, who has graduated as pottery major at USU said Mason asked him to scratch her arm at a past the art department's past Halloween art auction event.

"As we sat through the auction she prompted me, by holding out her arm, that it was time to begin the ritual arm scratching," Maddocks said. "At the time, I didn't realize how odd it looked. But apparently it was noticed by several people, and it came up later in conversations," he said.

Maddocks said one of his professors asked him if he was "trying to scratch her arm off.

"That's when it dawned on me how bizarre that behavior seemed, "he said. Maddocks admits that Mason was the third girl he had dated with the similar obsession.

Mason said she usually asks her closer friends to scratch her arms, with the exception of two former cases where she barely had known the person for an hour. One was a person she met at the "A" on True Aggie Night. Another time she asked a person named Danny at a basketball game. Mason said doesn't know his last name.

Starlyn Stout, Mason's friend and current roommate said she was asked to scratch Mason's arm less than two weeks after becoming her friends.

"It was during our freshman year in the dorms, we were watching the "Waiting for Guffman" movie and she proposed that 'if you scratch my arm, I'll scratch yours.'" Stout said.