How I Survived Thanksgiving

There is a simple rule in life I have never learned – Lift with the legs and not with the back. When I set up or pack the booth I sometimes feel a twinge or a few needles. I need to take a few minutes or I fill out paperwork until it passes. Last week was no different.

Yesterday, turkey day, I woke up early and helped sibling unit number four get ready for the big morning. She did a great job prepping and making moms rolls to carry on tradition. When I say I helped, now thinking of it, it was mostly just moral support and playing with the cat.

There is no coffee in the house, so I went to the gas station and filled the tank for later and got a cup of coffee. Walking up the drive way parental unit number five yelled out her front door “p2, can you shovel the walk?”

There was a dusting over night that was now mostly ice under the white powder sugar that was blowing. Not enough for the snow blower, or for that matter a shovel; but I am a good kid and do what I am told. I start with the porch and deck then move to the walk.

Now I must warn you, that I have repeated several times over my life that I have no interest in being a home owner, condo at best. There is no, absolutely not, insert international symbol for no way, I am interested in mowing another lawn or shoveling another walk way in my life.

As I bend and push the shovel hitting the seam in the sidewalk the most intense needles shoot in my lower back. My keens buckle. The lower part of my body goes limp. I catch myself on the shovel handle before hitting the ground.

During the morning several guests, family and friends come through the house for breakfast. They gather around me as I sit, unable to stand to greet or say good-bye, in my throbbing pain. When they leave I lay on the hard floor hoping it will “pop back into place.”

My sister, who is the funniest person I know, uses the red laser pointed the cat has a crack like addiction of chasing, to highlight my belly – when Spencer (the worlds greatest cat) pounces. I laughed so hard it hurt.

Knees still weak, I jump in the VW and drive to parental units 1 and 4 for dinner. The Cry’n Lions are loosing miserably and I think my good friend Mark Mac is right, we have given them enough decades to rebuild. Time to find another team. I look like, well, my grandfather as I hobble in the house bent over and sit. I sit for hours talking. Then I move to the table and sit for dinner. When I try to stand to leave with a bag of left-overs the stiffness has set in. I look like I pooped my pants waddling to the door.

I have been on the couch or in bed ever since. It is a boring life to just sit and do nothing. People have been great, offering help, or assistance. But I am staying put. I nearly cried yesterday as I slowly made my way up the three flights to my apartment.

It occurs to me in the middle of a long hot shower today that this is why people live together, date or get married. Sure the love and sex is fine I hear, but the real thing is injury. Cup of soup with a cold, running to the store for medicine when you have the flu, or helping you off the toilet after trying to get up for the last hour with a strained back.