vituperation

June 16, 2003

It had balloons, too, but they were for the kitties.

Father’s Day rocks. One might get the impression, just judging from that picture, that my wife loves me very much. However, there’s a darker side to her, a side no one sees. I think that side secretly wants to kill me. Read on, and judge for yourself.

Sometimes it’s simply amazing how one tiny muscle — no, not the weiner muscle — can control the way your whole body works. Case in point: there’s a small muscle in your lower back, just to the side of your spine, that apparently helps in almost every movement you make. Pull this muscle, and even the most trivial of tasks becomes agony. I know, because on two separate occasions I pulled this muscle while lifting weights. The first time, I was doing deadlifts and I had the barbell a little too far away from my legs. The second, I was performing preacher curls and I lifted my ass off the bench a little and overbalanced.

Physics is a bitch.

Yesterday I cut the grass because it sorely needed it. It’s been raining almost every day here for a while (or seems like it, anyway) and the grass had passed the level I can tolerate. It was pretty out, mostly, with the occasional big stormy cloud obscuring an otherwise blue sky. I worked up a nice sweat because it was so humid, which was nice because I haven’t sweated much since the surgery from just over a week ago.

When I finished the grass I stopped the mower and went to the garage to get another garbage bag for the clippings. I’d half-filled three bags already because the grass was so long, and I needed a fourth so I wouldn’t have to overfill one of the others. Unfortunately, once I was in the garage I found that we had no other bags. My neighbor Joe from a couple of doors down was standing at the end of his driveway weeding one of his flowerbeds when I walked back out to the mower.

“Did you find your cat yet?” he called.

“No,” I said, “he just up and vanished.” Like a fart in the wind, my mind finished, ripping a line from The Shawshank Redemption.

“I’ve seen a big gray cat out in my back yard,” he said, “eating the fish out of my pond. Twenty-one fish, and they’re all gone.”

I plucked at the neckline of my t-shirt, remembering that Mr. Fancypants looks grayish right now with his shaved body.

“Oh yeah?” I said.

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen that one in a while. Probably because all the fish are gone. What’s yours look like?”

“He’s black.” I cleared my throat. “But he looks kind of gray right now because he’s been trimmed for the summer. Did the one you saw have a hot pink collar?”

“I dunno.” Joe shrugged, then grinned. “I didn’t do anything to it, I promise!”

I smiled back, and turned to empty the lawnmower bag into the garbage bag. It happened when I picked up the garbage bag to move it five feet from the yard to the curb. An all too familiar wave intense pain flared in my lower back, just above my ass cheek, as the muscle gave out because I was overextended.

Five damn feet.

Shit, I thought, dropping the bag and grabbing my back like an old man. Fuck, shit, dammitalltohell. I guess I’m fucked as far as lifting weights tomorrow. For the entire week after my surgery I’d been counting the days until I could start weight training again, and now I’d screwed that tiny little muscle in my back that appears to be the nexus of my body’s movement.

Slowly I dragged the bag over to the curb, holding one hand over the spot on my back. I made my way back to the mower and pushed it to the shed. I hobbled into the house and crept up the stairs so I could take a shower before I settled into a recliner with an ice pack.

The steam from the hot water enveloped me, wrapping me like a moist glove as I stepped into the shower. It was heaven on my back, and I could hardly wait to bend over and let the hot water pound the small of my back.

First, however, came cleanliness.

Lathering up with the Lever 2000, I watched the tiny bits of grass sluice off me and swirl down the drain. I washed, moving ever so slowly, from head to toe. I finished by washing my hair, then turned to face the back of the shower, my eyes screwed tightly shut.

Blindly, I reached out to touch the wall of the shower with one hand, and the the shower seat (yes, we can sit down in our shower) with the other, to get a bearing. The jet of water moved slowly down my back as I leaned forward, and it centered right on the sorest spot — the place from whence all my agony radiated — as the top of my head touched the wall of the shower. I moved my hands to my knees for support, glad I wasn’t standing this way in a prison shower. I opened my eyes, and found that my face was hovering some six inches above a coiled and waterlogged tampon laying on the shower seat. A coiled and waterlogged used tampon.

To my credit I did not scream.

I straightened, careful not to involve my back.

“Hey, Bessie?” I called to Robyn, who was sitting out in the bedroom reading a book. By my tone she immediately knew about the prize I’d found, though there was no way she could know how I found it.

“Oh shit!” she yelled, and ran into the bathroom. “Did I leave you a present?”

Gingerly, I picked up the tampon by the string and handed it over the top of the shower door her. She tossed it into the toilet and flushed, immediately causing the water spraying over me to heat up a good ten degrees or so.

This time, I did scream.

My beloved Dr. Judy called in some steroids — the wonder drug, as far as I’m concerned — for my back today, so I should be about back to normal by tomorrow morning. Thank God, I can do my upper body workout as long as I’m careful.