Oh, My Aching Back!

I've been away from here for a few days for a very good reason (unlike the other delinquent members of this blog) and that reason is my aging, aching back.

At 42 years of age... yes, I realise most of you fancy that I'm 25 and lean, dark-haired, and unwrinkled, but alas that hasn't been true for 17 years.... anyway, at age 42, the back has become less reliable, especially on the relic of a mattress Mrs. Fando and I have at home. It's one of those foam mattresses that is supposed to gently contour itself to your body. Well, it did for about the first 10 years. Now it gently contours itself to the maniacal whims of entropy. Our bodies just get in the way, much in the way the S.S. Poseidon got in the way of that ruddy massive tidal wave.

I never imagined becoming so old that I could injure myself sleeping, but apparently I have, and at the frisky, young age of 42. I now know why elderly people sleep as little as they do in their own beds. They are deathly afraid of sustaining major muscle injuries as a direct result of rolling over in an unconscious state. Instead, they sleep in environments that tend to prevent such action, such as in easy chairs and whilst driving.

I awoke Friday morning to a neck, back, and shoulder pain so fearsome that I thought I had been infected by one of those Alien thingys and it was trying to get out of my body directly through my scapula. It felt quite what I imagined acupuncture would feel like, were it done with an unsharpened ice pick by someone whose first name was either Jason, Freddy, Michael, or whatever the name of the character was in Basic Instinct, played by Sharon Stone. I didn't see that film, the but adverts were positively spine-wracking. She'd know how to use the ice-pick apparently.

So, I spent the rest of the day at home, sitting - or more accurately, curled up in a fetal ball - in the easy chair. I didn't so much as touch a computer until Saturday morning, and then only briefly. Fortunately, the back and neck are better today, though still stiff as a cricket bat in January.

I'll try to get back to posting more regularly this week. Someone here should...