I’m a pain. No, that’s not right. I mean I have a pain. I still have a pain. It’s a pain left over from last week. Hovering in my lower back. My sciatica to be more exact. It took me around 3 minutes to remember that word because I’ve purposely been calling it my cicada off an on for years. I said it as accidentally years ago and I turned it into a joke but now I have to stop and think to remember what it’s actually called. I guess basically what I’m saying is I’m smart enough to remember the wrong word every time but dumb enough to rarely remember the correct word most all the time.
For about a week I haven’t been able to stand up straight and it’s beginning to make all the other muscles from my neck down to my ankles sore from picking up the slack. I walk around hunkered over as though I’m looking on the ground for the screw that fell out of my cicada plate. Every now and then a sharp pain will stab pretty hard, usually catching me off guard even though it happens about every minute or so. When it does it shuts my leg down briefly and I do a dip giving me the appearance of having a bit of swag. That would be believable if I didn’t also wince and make an audible, arrggh. Sometimes it’s quiet but depending on how sharp and off guard it is it can be quite loud. If I’m out walking with anyone, it doesn’t take long for them to go walk by themselves. One of their most recent quotes as they walked away was, “You’re just doing this for attention.” I’d mention who said that but it’s not nice to be mean to your friends. Ahem.
I’d been lying in bed reading for about an hour and around 11:30pm, it started hurting worse. I got up and went to my pull up bar and tried to hang from it and stretch out. It helped for about 2.3 seconds and then it flipped around and stabbed me with a small screwdriver. My wife is asleep 6 feet away so I held the manly pain noise inside. Luckily I had braced for the pain to show up so it was easier to muffle. That maneuver obviously wasn’t going to work so I stood there flummoxed about what to do next. (Flummoxed was honestly the closest word that came to mind about my current mental state.) Then an idea struck me like the pain just had. I’d go try the “hang upside downinator” or as normal people call it, the inversion table.
I had to move the clothes off as it had currently been used as a place for me to store my winter jackets. We’re still having some cold snaps so it’s not time to move them to the chair in the bedroom yet for summer storage. I get it cleaned off and because I’m smart I do a test flip, without me on it, to make sure it seems to be in working order. Everything seems like a go so I climb on and strap my feet in. If I’m being truthful, I was taken over by a slight amount of giddiness thinking about this brilliant idea. Why hadn’t I thought if it sooner? I could’ve been healed a week ago. I should do this everyday as preventative medicine I thought as I started leaning back. I’ll have to clean my shorts off the chair so I have a place to put my jackets. I leaned back. I stopped when I was horizontal to let my brain slowly adjust to having blood and oxygen in it. Normally the rocks stay pretty stifled up there and I didn’t wanna risk putting myself into O2 shock. (Is that a thing?) I went to lower my head a little more and I fell through a portal. I was thrown in one of those Dr Who tv shows where you’re flying down some weird tube. I’m flying backwards for what seems like 15 minutes and then I’m slamming stopped. It makes a horribly loud noise. Panic fills me first. I realize I’ve made several horrible choices. I’m terrified I’ve woken my wife. I expect her to come rushing through the bedroom door with a rolling pin and a devil riding shotgun on her shoulder. The angel from the other shoulder will be leering at me from the bedroom shaking her head and looking the other way. And I’ll be seeing my death happen upside down. The second thing to wash over me was pain. It hurts very badly to hang upside down. My cicada was chirping something fierce. My mouth opened to make loud manly pain noises but the image of my wife and the rolling pin stuffed a sock in my mouth.
So i sucked wind and did my best to pull myself up. Someone had definitely messed with the height on the upside downinator and so I was way off balance. I’d have been able to pull myself up if the pain from all those spots weren’t crying like a little baby. I’d pull to get up and the pain would slap me about the head an neck and call me names. I heard a voice in my head say, “you’re just doing this for attention.” It hurt to have mean friends, but it hurt more to be upside down and moving made it all way worse. I tried to release my feet but they wouldn’t cooperate either. Apparently cicada pain was boss now and had taken the wheel, was drunk and looking for someone to run down. I jibbed and jabbed and rolled and rocked. Everything I did made it hurt. I bet my my wife would understand if I called to her. She wouldn’t be too upset if I woke her because I had managed to get myself stuck upside down in the middle of the night. Luckily the extra blood and oxygen in my head helped the rest of brain to kickstart. It quickly told me it would be best to just let it end here. Be found in the morning with my head now enormous from swelling and be rescued then. I would take small breaks and then attempt pushing through the pain and deadened limbs to free myself. Five or so minutes passed. Crying silently upside down is actually therapeutic in case anyone wants to know. I struggled. I winced and moved and finally managed to make my muscles, the ones I hadn’t put in the closet a few christmases ago, to pull me up amidst the pain.
I tried to slowly raise up to acclimate from bat back to human. Instead, I all but slammed forward into an upright position. My head had to weigh close to eighty pounds now and I imagined it would give the rolling pin a nice target. My legs now had no blood and so had decided to not support me and laughed as my butt slid downwards towards the floor. This was better than upside down so I started working my feet out of the stirrups so I could go to the sofa and cry without worry of waking my wonderful wife up, bless her heart and thank you Lord for her patience with me. Even when she’s asleep and unaware.
So now here I am sitting on the sofa writing this out so that I can share it with all of you. It would’ve been easy enough to let this slide away and no one ever be the wiser. I’m hoping instead, and this could be from oxygen poisoning, that I may save someone else from making the same mistakes. If I help just one person then it was worth it all. Not really but I need a win here. The moral of this story is to 1: always check devices that flip you upside down thoroughly before mounting. 2: when you have “brilliant” ideas at night and your wife is asleep, make sure the rolling pins and hammers are hidden away. 3: Suppress ideas that you have in the middle of the night. I’d you don’t then it’s a good idea to wear a helmet as well. This is why they live longer than us. Be safe out there and make sure you all tell your wives/ girlfriends you love them and thank you. It’s almost 1am now so wait until the morning to tell them.