Exercising is Fun! Except When It's Not.
'A MATTER OR LAUGH OR DEATH' -- Watch our for stiletto-wielding Ninjas.
As everyone knows, it’s important to exercise regularly to stay healthy. Also, as everyone knows, it’s important to warm up and stretch first, to make sure you don’t get hurt while exercising. Well, I have a question: what should you do before you warm up and stretch, to make sure you don’t get hurt while making sure you don’t get hurt? Um, asking for a friend.
A few weeks ago, I was, er, I mean, my friend was doing his usual morning exercise routine. At his advanced age of 69 (wow, I have old friends!), he knows it’s important to stretch first before doing his daily regimen of jogging in place for 30 minutes with hand weights, followed by about 15 minutes of push-ups and sit-ups. According to my friend, when he brought his right leg up, bent at the knee toward his chest to stretch out his leg muscles, exactly as he’s done countless times before, suddenly a ninja assassin leaped out from behind the couch and thrust a stiletto knife into his lower back. Or, at least it felt like that, as my friend described it. (By the way, I might be confusing cultures here. I’m not sure if Japanese ninjas import their weapons from Italy, but a stiletto is what it felt like — uh, according to my friend.)
The primary question is: Is it possible to hurt your back while trying to make sure you don’t get hurt during the actual exercising? Apparently, the answer is yes. The pain in my lower back was so sharp, I could barely move. (OK, fine. It was ME!)
I shuffled gingerly toward the couch and sat down. The pain was so intense, I didn’t bother to check and see if any other ninjas were hiding behind the couch. With my luck, they procured all their weapons from Italy and a garrote was about to be slipped around my neck. The way my back felt at the moment, I might’ve welcomed that development.
As I sat there, I took inventory to try and discern exactly how injured I was. I gently leaned forward, and to the right and to the left, and then I lifted my feet off the floor one at a time. Each time I moved, it was no more than two inches of motion before flashes of searing pain shot through my lower back. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to stand up.
I said a quick prayer, asking God for healing, and then threw in this prayerful observation: “Those nerve endings you created, Lord, are working great! They’re doing exactly what you designed them to do: warn me when I might be doing something dangerous. But I have to ask you something, Lord, if you don’t mind: is standing up and walking slowly and carefully really THAT much of a hazard? If not, could you ask those nerve endings to take a break, at least until I can limp into the bathroom? You see, this is a fairly new couch, and, well, I’d rather not cause a large stain, if you get my drift. And by the way, that urinary tract system you created also is working great! Maybe a little too great.”
The rest of that day was pretty dicey. When I sat, my back did not hurt. But the more I sat, the stiffer it got, which made the pains sharper when I finally did get up. Within a few days it felt noticeably better. I was able to start walking like a 90-year-old guy, rather than how I walked the first day, like a 190-year-old guy.
I’m optimistic that I’ll fully heal soon. And when that happens, the first thing I’m going to do is check behind my couch to make sure there are no more Japanese ninjas with Italian weapons. Then I’m going to do what I should have done years ago: stay away from exercising. It’s too dangerous!
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(The humor column “A Matter of Laugh or Death” appeared weekly for 24 years in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT.)
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A Matter of Laugh of Death (Parenthetical Comments from the Back Row)
A collection of published humor columns.
The Gospel According to Morty - And Other Merry Musings on Faith
A collection of faith essays, including the popular short story: “A Connecticut Yankee in King Jesus’ Court.”
The Memoir of Saint Joseph - A Work of Spiritual Imagination
A plausible tale about the life of the ‘Silent Knight’ of Bethlehem.
As a person who, not through any fault of her own, has major confrontations with her sciatic nerve, you have my deepest sympathy. I once asked my neurologist what causes discs to herniate. His reply was that one could herniate a disc by sneezing, or by getting out of bed in the morning, or by any other otherwise simple movement. Personally, and I am a practicing Catholic, it's my considered opinion that what causes disc to herniate is the malevolence and perversity of the Disc Demons. They are crafty devils and mean as snakes. Agents of Beelzebub.