Dear Back:

We’ve been together a long time. I consider you to be a very close, uh, body part. Now of course, our relationship has been somewhat strained for the last five years, ever since you suddenly decided to take that lifelong tendency of yours to get your vertebrae out of joint to the next level, so to speak.

Now, I don’t hold you entirely to blame. After all, I haven’t exactly taken things easy on you. I’ve abused you. I’ve ignored injuries to you – although in my defense, the fact that you’ve always been so damned touchy hasn’t helped there.

After all, I can hardly go through my whole entire life not doing stuff because you’re being a prima donna, Back. I can’t just stop everything to cater to your every whim. Not only would that lead to a very dull life indeed, it’s not just about you, or me, or us – there is a whole big family involved here, and we all have needs.

Which is why I think we need to have this chat today, Back. Because I really don’t understand what you’re doing right now.

I think at this point it may be helpful to pause for a quick review of the sorts of things that may or may not be reasonably expected to cause a back to go :!!!pwang!!!: and then throw itself and the rest of the body attached to it into a downward spiral of agony from which there seems no escape for the next unknowable period of time.

Activities that WOULD be expected to cause a :!!!pwang!!!:

• Moving a piano up two flights of stairs
• Picking up a furiously fighting five year old who doesn’t WANT to take a
  bath right now, even though he smells like the jacks behind the 5th Infantry encampment
• Digging trenches
• Wrestling bears
• Bench-pressing a VW Microbus

Activities that would NOT be expected to cause a :!!!pwang!!!:

• Sitting up in bed
• Coughing
• Laughing
• Picking up a 24-count box of Junior Meltaway allergy tabs (total weight maybe 5/8 an ounce)
  

All clear? Good. Now. As you know, Back, I picked up a box of melt-away allergy tablets on Tuesday morning. I was leaning down slightly to do this, and I was looking to my left so I could bellow at call to Captain Adventure to come and take his allergy medicine.

And you went :!!!pwang!!!: with an almost audible pop and have been a right bastard ever since. You have scoffed at Advil, sneered at Tylenol, and have throbbed defiantly at Vicodin. You won’t be soothed by packs of heat or ice. You don’t want me to sit, stand, stretch, hold still or lie down. You’re keeping me up all night and then cramping up even more because we’re tired.

All because I picked up a tiny little box of allergy medicine?

Pardon my use of abbreviated obscenity, Back, but, seriously…WTF?!

Now, I still love you. We’ve been through a lot together. We’ve ridden horses and bicycles, climbed mountains, gone wind surfing; we’ve swum countless miles in pools and sloughs. We’ve stood on the bows of sailboats and crawled through cave openings that common sense said were a very bad idea indeed.

We’ve fallen and gotten back up (eventually) many times, you and I.

But if you don’t sober up and fly straight PDQ, I’m sending you to military school.

And this time I really mean it.

Love,
Me