My Dorsal Region Mocks Me

I'm sure you all dropped by, ever hopeful, to find that I was miraculously healed, and writing about something more entertaining than my (non)broken back. Who are you people, Charlie Brown hoping to kick a football held by Lucy Van Pelt? This leopard is not about to change her spots.

I am running on four hours sleep. Here, let me reveal the details. They have nothing to do with a pea under the mattress.

5:15 p.m. to 6:15 p.m
A sound slumber in the basement recliner, awaking to a dream phone ringing. Which turned out to be the real phone, The Pony on the other end, saying his dad wanted him to call and see if I was all right, because I had not been feeling well when he left. The fleeting moments of pain-free-ness quickly turned to tear-evoking back spasms.

11:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.
I nodded off under my fleece blanket, all warm and toasty watching TV, again in the downstairs recliner. I woke up because it was time to go to bed. Which was one of the slowest trips up 13 stairs upon which I had ever embarked.

4:00 a.m. to 4:50 a.m.
Funny how I could not fall asleep at 1:30 in my flannel-sheeted queen-size. I tried laying on my side, in order to slip that dislocated spasm-generator back into place. Funny how my back quit hurting, but my neck started up. Oh, and not funny how every time Hick flopped over, I sailed up and down like a jolly good fellow in a blanket toss. I hadn't been that jolted since Hick drove me through the fields of my grandma's Christmas tree farm in his old pickup while I was in early labor with Genius, who was born at 9:24 the next morning.

Yes, that's ten minutes short. But I'd rather think of myself getting four hours sleep than three hours and fifty minutes of sleep.

I made it through work without any major sleepage incidents. The back held up. Seriously. This is public school with seven days left, testing over, only fun projects left to do. It's not like I was on the Boys' Town Wagon Train Train Ride.

The main thorn in my side was the little dude at the register in Save A Lot on the way home. We went to pick up The Pony's new glasses, and I stopped at the lesser Save A Lot for some hamburger to add to the four-cheese tortellini that The Pony wanted for supper. While I was there, I tossed in some frozen garlic toast, and three individual packs of Soft Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies because The Pony asked for them. With my back still tender, I piled my items in the upper child seat area of the cart, so as to invoke no bending and lifting.

The cashier slid my foodstuffs over the scanner and tossed them in the waiting cart. There were only five items, people. How hard is it to attend to them properly? Apparently, the difficulty level is on par with herding a clowder of cats from Independence to Oregon City. He flung my purchases into the waiting child seat, which was more ready for a child, what with the flat red plastic seat flap down, not up against the handle. Two of the Soft Batch treats slammed to the tile floor at 98 meters per second squared.

That meant Val of the (non)broken back club had to bend over and retrieve them. It was not a pretty sight.

The words Val had for the cashier as she exited the establishment were not a pretty sound.