This next week marks my achievement of making yet another complete rotation around the sun on this ferro-nickel rock ball we call home. Coinciding with my annual trek, I have recently become painfully aware of the limits of my quickly dilapidating frame.
Two factors contribute to my current tales of woe. First, in a matter of freak genetics, the males of my immediate family have unusually long torsos. This, sadly, gives us no advantages other than the ability to see over short people and the propensity for lower back issues. Second, I am horribly accident prone. Combine my bad back with my ability to injure myself in even the most safe environments and you have the perfect recipe for my current run with organized sports.
In an attempt to justify the amount of beer I drink each week, I started playing soccer (again) several years ago. When the league started up most of the teams were like-minded and saw the matches as a way to justify going to the bar afterwards. As the players started getting that false sense of pride and hope that comes with scoring goals and winning games, the league got a lot more competitive. By the time our team fell by the wayside (D-Burn/Brewsers R.I.P.!), we had managed to very successfully fill the coffers of many a medical specialist in the DFW area. I, myself, had managed to jack up both knees, tweak my back horribly, break an uncountable number of toes and even break my own rib in a fall worthy of a Warner Bros. cartoon. Did I mention I was accident prone?
In the aftermath of soccer (not dead, just on hiatus), I mistakenly thought it would be a good idea to partake in a 3-on-3 basketball season/tournament with some fellows at work. The season started roughly a month ago and I managed to get a good eight minutes in before I was crushed backwards (oddly enough by an HR specialist) and sent to the floor with my back spasming. Thus ends my current basketball career. That’s right LeBron, you’re off the hook. Three weeks later and I still have to be very wary of my horrible slouching posture lest I not be able to walk out of my office. Boy howdy that’s fun.
So that leaves me with more pedestrian methods of keeping my shattered corpse in good enough shape to keep upright for the time being. I’ll keep doing individual activities where the chance of me being folded, spindled or mutilated are slim (though I probably will find a way). My next hope at damaging myself falls this summer when work has been toying with a badminton tourney. Yes, I am, in the first time since college, going to find a way to injure myself playing a game made popular by British aristocracy whilst subjugating India. Kudos to me.
In the meantime, does anyone know of a good herbal muscle relaxer? My prescription of Flexeril is running out.