The latest contribution from Rose City Writers, this week from STEPHEN AINLEY…
Check out more short stories at Fleur Lind’s website – fleursfabulousfables.wordpress.com
My bad back
If there’s one thing that annoys me. Well, actually, there’s a lot of things that annoy me, including people who say, “if there’s one thing that annoys me”, but we have not got time for that now.
If there’s one thing that annoys me, it’s when you’ve had a bad back for years, and someone says to you, “Oh, you must do Pilates, its absolutely wonderful, a few weeks of Pilates and you’ll be leaping about like a young gazelle.”
Well, firstly, I did not know what a Pilates was; I assumed that it was an old Roman Emperor, but no, evidently it’s some new wonder exercise, so I invest huge amounts of money on a Pilates DVD. What do I find? Two young athletic model types contorting themselves all over the place, there were people there who could lie face down on their stomachs and bend their heads back until they touched their feet.
Let me tell you something about myself. If I do thirty minutes of warm-up exercises first, I may nearly be able to touch my knees; most mornings, my wife has to put my socks on for me; this is bad because she doesn’t like wearing my socks. Anyway, the point is, the people they use as models are all young athletes who probably leap out of bed in the morning, without an ache or pain between them. It’s the same with adverts on television for Anti-Wrinkle Cream; they always use an 18-year-old supermodel to test it out. There’s no difference when you look at the before and after pictures. Why would there be? She’s only 18; she’s never had a wrinkle. Even I had perfect skin at that age. Why not use an overweight, middle-aged person with a face like a Pit-bull Terrier to test it out. Then if it worked, I’d be impressed; in fact, I’d buy a bucketful for myself.
Anyway, I got sidetracked there, but returning to my back, someone else suggested an Exercise Ball; if you have not seen one of these, they look like a giant balloon, only you can sit on them. Unfortunately, I fell off mine and reinjured my back.
Next up was a visit to the docs. I tell him the pain is so bad I can’t bend to touch my knees in the morning. He asks if I can touch them later in the day. I say, yes, when I’m sitting in an armchair, I can touch them no problem, so he advises me to spend more time sitting in an armchair touching my knees. Also, some new tablets have arrived with glowing reports.
Now, no offence to doctors, but I always like to check new tablets out on the internet, just in case there’s some side effect I should know about. In this case, I wish I had not bothered.
The first thing it said was, ‘clumsiness, leading to accidental injuries. Now, this did not concern me too much because clumsiness leading to accidental injures is an everyday occurrence for me anyway. I was somewhat bothered by ‘swelling of the lips, hands and feet’, and then I noticed ‘diarrhoea’. I immediately instructed my wife to keep the nearest toilet available at all times. Still, I was then thrown into complete confusion when I noticed that the following side effect said ‘constipation’. I did not know what to do for a while, but eventually, I moved my chair halfway between the toilet and a bowl of All-Bran.
The list goes on and on, ‘sleepiness, tiredness, listlessness, drowsiness’ I think it’s trying to tell me something, but I’m too tired to work out what.
Anyway, I’ve been on the tablets for a while now, and I have not had one accident. My lips, hands and feet have not got more prominent, and you will be especially pleased to know that my bowels are in perfect working order.
So it just goes to show you should not believe everything you read on the internet. Mind you, my back is no better, but you can’t have everything.
Steve … if I were a horse, they’d put me down.
