Like house parties, massages give people an excuse to forget about everyday stresses and fall asleep on someone else's table. Attend a fettle-ready fiesta with today's Groupon: for $17, you get a one-hour Swedish or therapeutic massage from a student at Colorado Institute of Massage Therapy (a $35 value).

Open for 26 years, Colorado Institute of Massage Therapy transforms fledgling muscle molders into bona fide massage therapists with practical, on-the-job training. Tense backs and stressed frames hop onto the bliss bed for an hour of relaxing Swedish or therapeutic massage, performed by a well-trained, bright-eyed student yet to become jaded by the spine’s unrelenting arrogance. During the Swedish massage, well-rehearsed hands strum the strings of tranquility across the back in long, sweeping strokes, and therapeutic-massage techniques untie tense knots and kinks with the speed and accuracy of an auctioneer’s secretary taking dictation.