Old Man Injury – Coccyx

Last Saturday, I was doing nothing in particular and suddenly, by nighttime, I was dealing with completely debilitating pain in my…coccyx (tailbone). I could barely move. Standing and laying down were sort of doable, but sitting down and moving just weren’t in the cards. The tailbone just hurt like mad. On Sunday, I missed church and didn’t leave the house as I laid down or stood up all day. Too painful to sit.

Absolutely no idea what has caused this pain. Only thing I can come up with is that my birthday was 9/22 and some force in the universe was simply trying to taunt me re my age.

One thing I have learned from this OMI is that I seriously take for granted sitting. All day every day I sit. And I’ve never thought about how nice it is to sit without pain. It’s sort of like breathing. I take sitting for granted constantly. Well, now that it hurts to sit, I don’t take it for granted. In fact, all of you sitting and reading this ought to take a moment to un-take-for-granted the fact that you can sit pain-free.

Ever notice…

…that every person you have ever seen riding a recumbent bike has had facial hair?

Shown up by 4 year olds

A few weeks ago, I went to my son’s final day of soccer camp. (I know, he’s only 4, but in Brookfield they start them early…and I should add that his mom and dad have plans to move to England in 10 years to watch him play for Manchester United.) Anyway, because it was the final day, the coaches set up a game of kids vs parents. We were told beforehand that the kids would win, but that we shouldn’t be afraid to score maybe a goal or two.

Well, I was pretty pumped because I hadn’t taken the field for a soccer game in years. I realized that most of my opponents were more interested in playing with their shin guards and wandering off to the dandelion area, but that was OK – this was a soccer game and I was ready. As I stretched (hoping to avoid an embarrassing old man injury – a 5 minute game against 3-4 year olds is a prime OMI situation), I was overcome with a thought that I couldn’t shake: how would people react if I tried my absolute hardest? I had visions of knocking kids over, keeping the ball away from kids until they cried, scoring emphatic goals (breaking the small plastic goals in the process), then celebrating obnoxiously and of course, talking tons of trash (“both you AND your mom suck”). I kept thinking “what would people say? How would they explain to their kids why the kids lost the game 22-0, why an aggressive old man celebrated so wildly after goals and why so many of the children got injured?”

Fortunately, these thoughts left me just on time and the result was a humiliating 5-0 defeat to 3-4 year olds. The other parents seemed fine with this…though it must have been apparent I wasn’t when my son offered his gold medal to me saying “here dad, this is for trying hard – and don’t worry, like you said, everybody loses sometimes”.

“At least you scored…” I said, fighting back the tears.

What if Tom Brady were named…

Bart Terkelberger? Seriously. His name fits his image – but what if it didn’t?

Kids confused, traumatized by Hurricane Dora

Old Man Mind Injury?

Ok, not sure how else to characterize this. But I have caught myself doing some amazingly absent-minded things lately and it has me concerned I’ve suffered some kind of an Old Man Mind Injury.

• When I’m bored and surfing the internet, I have noticed that there are times when I type in the website address of the website I’m already on. Yep, I head right back to the same site I’ve been on.
• And when I get into the car in the morning, I have noticed that there are times when I start changing the radio stations…before I’ve turned the radio on.

Either I’ve suffered an Old Man Mind Injury or the prospect of no football is overwhelming my simple brain.

Men driving minivans – watch out

Anyone else experience the terror of driving in the vicinity of a man driving a minivan? An aggressiveness matched only by FIBs. I think they’re just ticked off because they lost the which-car-should-we-buy-next argument.

Happy April Fools Day

Click here, print off a copy and post this next to your copier at work if you want to mix things up a bit!

Proof that dictators have total power…

Check out this picture from cnbc.com’s run down of dictators (non middle east dictators). Seems this Karimov guy, all hopped up on his power, told the soldiers they needed to put the metal gun ending piece thing…in a nostril. I don’t know much about military protocol, but I’m pretty sure this is just a cruel dictatorial demand.

 

If governors and the president truly want to cut the budget…

I’d suggest they start by reducing the number of pens they use to sign bills with.