Once again, I find myself in immense pain. And once again, I find myself receiving a grand total of zero sympathy.
A few months back, I told the story of a wicked back pain I had. When I went to complain to my wife about the severity of my ailment ("A hundred times worse than child birth!!!"), she reminded me that perhaps my stand-on-the-head competition with my daughter was the cause of it, and therefore the reason I was deserving of as much sympathy as someone who licks a moving fan.
But this time would be different, since I was blessed with two hurting spots in my back. My lower back felt like someone had hit me across it with a bat, while my neck felt like someone had taken the same bat, whittled it down to a fine point and stabbed me with it.
Actually, the pain did not start all at once. I woke up with the neck pain, probably because I slept hanging over the edge of the bed, which is not the ideal way to sleep, I have found. Spending six hours as if I were looking for something under the bed will generally be bad news for your neck.
The lower back pain took place on a walk I was taking with my son. Parker and I were cruising the neighborhood, having a nice time. Our walks are always fun, because I encourage him to find animals. I point out squirrels, dogs, etc. He points out tigers, alligators, etc. He either has very good vision or a very vivid imagination.
At one point during the walk, I made the foolish mistake of trying to take another step. As I stepped, my back kind of seized up, and I had three options: (1) Continue walking, and show my son that it is OK for a grown man to cry (2) stop where I was and hold this freeze-frame or (3) fall to the ground.
I opted for No. 2, which Parker thought was some pantomime performance for his enjoyment. Ah, the joys of parenting -- frozen in time, afraid to move lest knee-buckling pain overwhelm you, while your son claps and laughs and points.
After a few minutes, the pain began to ease up. Either that or the endorphins started kicking in. Either way, I as able to start creeping home, shuffling like Tim Conway's storekeeper. By the time I made it home, Parker had grown tired of my hunched-over shuffle, and was now trying to climb out of his stroller. And 2-year-olds rarely take the conventional path when getting out of a stroller. Rather, they will arch up and try and slink backwards over the top of the stroller. I decided the best way to stop him from doing this was to reason with him. Clearly, I was not thinking straight, since reasoning with a 2-year-old is comparable to reasoning with a chipmunk.
ME: Parker, please sit down. We're almost home, and Daddy's back is really hurting.
PARKER: OUUUUUUUTTTTT!
ME: Please?
PARKER: OUUUUUUUTTTTT!
ME: Just a few more...
PARKER: OUUUUUUUTTTTT!
Somehow, we managed to carry on this brilliant dialog for the last few blocks of our walk. When we got upstairs, I decided that the best way to let the pain subside was to lie on the ground in a manner than eased the pain. Because I was trying to ease two pains, I was twisting my body in a way that, when my wife walked in, I can only guess looked like the chalk outline of someone whose parachute had not opened.
Now, most spouses would immediately be concerned. "What's wrong?" they would ask. Mine, however, has come to expect this, and asked instead, "What now?"
I explained to her my back woes, and, without so much as stopping to consider the baseball bat theory, she said, "Well, maybe you shouldn't have been doing somersaults with Parker yesterday."
OK, so my son is learning how to do somersaults, and I felt his form was a little lacking. And once I get started, I have no choice but to show off my back-somersault-into-a-headstand. Drives the kids wild.
So looking back on this, I guess I have learned a valuable lesson. The older I get, the more it hurts to do things like headstands and somersaults. Oh, that's not the lesson. The lesson is only to do them when my wife isn't looking. And then tell her I was hit with a bat.
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