Whenever I hear those words, “Don’t try this at home” it’s the first thing that I want to do! Now I am not a complete moron but would try some really dumb things. I have to admit I have pulled some really stupid stunts in my day.
When I was a kid around 4 or 5 I got my hand caught in a mousetrap. My father was working nights so my mother ran me down to the neighbor’s house for the man of the household to get it off me. It really hurt. I can still remember how much. The next morning my mother told me to tell my father what I had done. That was worse than the actual mousetrap.
That summer I jumped off the deck railing of a house in the Poconos attempting to do a backward summersault in the air. The next thing I knew I was on the deck trying to breathe. I knocked the air out of myself. I scared the daylights out of my parents. All the way back to NJ my father kept saying, “She’s lucky she didn’t break her neck!” or asking me “What the hell was I thinking?” I cried the whole way home but came out unscathed.
The following year, I found my father’s pipe and blew into the barrel containing the already smoked tobacco. I loved the smell of his pipe tobacco when he smoked it. I also liked the way the tobacco smelled in the plastic pouch it came it. As far as blowing in it, I don’t know why I did it, but I remember sitting on the floor of the living room pulling this trick. Pieces of tobacco got into both of my eyes.
My dad was home alone with me, my mother was out. He took a matchbook out and I panicked thinking he was going to set my eyes on fire. He took off a few of the paper matches and separated the bottoms of each match, splitting it in half. Then he licked it, told me to hold still, and got the tobacco out of both of my eyes.
When it was all over with he told me whatever I did, just don’t tell your mother! So I never did. He and I had many incidents over the years that my mother didn’t know about. My father on the other hand was always given the rundown of my behavior the second he walked into the house. “Wait until your father gets home!” was real in our house.
I went to Catholic school and you were supposed to go to mass every Sunday not only like good Catholics were supposed to, but because I went to Catholic School. You HAD to go since all the school news, schedules, or lunch menu were in the bulletin, you had to have a bulletin for the things you needed to know for the upcoming week.
My folks adopted a second child and my mother wouldn’t take the new baby to mass. I say a second child because that was all this person ever was to me. Always referred to me as the other child they adopted. I was nine years older and can’t remember having any kind of a relationship or even having one legit conversation with this person. I haven’t seen this second child since my father’s funeral in 2000 and that is okie dokie with me.
Back to the mass thing. It became my dad’s job to take me to church, bring the donation envelope and make sure we got a bulletin. My dad and I went to mass once. My dad also went to Catholic school and was an altar boy for years, until he got caught drinking the wine. Lol! Then my dad came up with the ultimate plan.
My dad and I would go for a ride, then he would park in front of the church after mass began. He sent me into the church and told me to give the usher man our donation envelope and ask him for a bulletin. It worked! It was easy. The usher man always gave me a wink and a smile. We had that coveted bulletin and I knew what days I was going to eat at school or bring cold lunch from home. I also knew when school picture day was coming up, a very big deal because you could wear your regular clothes and not our uniforms. After I ran back to the car we went to a diner for breakfast and my father warned me to not tell my mother. Why would I? This was the best!
My dad and I went about this Sunday arrangement for a long time. It got nerve-wracking some Mondays because one of the nuns would ask me a question about Sunday’s homily. Being able to think on my feet I always had reasonable enough answer.
My mother never found out and still doesn’t know about our Sunday morning shenanigans and breakfasts out. We usually ended up at a donut shop since my father loved a good jelly donut and a cup of coffee.
Now back to today. I took one for the team. Remember how I offered myself up to be a guinea pig and try out the Japanese Towel trick? It was going well. I looked forward to laying in Otto’s spot on the heated bathroom floor and covered myself with my heated towel. I set the alarm for five minutes and settled into the position. I started to meditate and it made the five minutes seem like thirty seconds.
Remember this towel thing started as a way to help people with back pain. It was supposed to realign the pelvis. The instructions for the towel exercise tell you when you are done to sit up evenly and slowly. Do not make any jerking movements. I was very careful since I’ve had lots of back issues in the past.
Last night I sat up carefully and stood up and wouldn’t you know my back was jacked! Are you kidding me? Dammit was then followed by a slew of more curse words. It wasn’t nearly as bad as times when my back “went out,”, but enough for it to hurt.
During the night I had to get up 4 or 5 times to put on more Ben Gay. I took a super hot shower this morning and it didn’t do shit. I actually thought for a second to do the towel trick again and maybe it would fix itself.
After a morning of being uncomfortable, I decided to do things my way. I went out to our inversion table in the gym and hung there in pain. Then I heard a bunch of cracking sounds coming from my back. I got myself out of the contraption and came back into the house. I mixed myself a strong ass Bloody Mary with lots of horseradish, Worcestershire sauce & celery salt.
I just took a couple of Tylenol and going to take a nap. I can already feel my back relaxing and think I may have fixed myself playing chiropractor again. I am great at fixing sciatic pain when that bothers me, so why not this too? I know my body well enough to know what works and what doesn’t. I also know when I am in trouble and need professional help.
It’s a couple hours later. I took a short nap and laid in bed doing some research for a piece I am getting ready to write. My back is a lot better. Better enough that I was going to go out and walk on the treadmill, but dinner needs to be started.