It Hurts Right Here

As we slip and slide into a new year, methinks this might be prime time for reflection, introspection and maybe a half cup of castor oil for all-’round motivation, matriculation and decalcification.

OK. So maybe we’ll just reflect and introspect. (Assuming that’s a word…) Besides, castor oil is old school. Among other things.

Have an ailment? Well, in this day and time, you can toss that bottle of castor oil—a cure-all for centuries—right out the window. (Then go find it and bury it so that Ma won’t be able to scrounge it up…)

The cure-all of today is, of course, the good old Interweb. Webernet. Interlink. Oh, you know what I’m talking about! That Gaggle thing with all them dots and commas.

The trick is to somehow hook up to that picture of a page-wide rectangular box and type what ails you in that there box. Carrying on,  use one of your seven thumbs to hit the “Return” button.

No, I don’t know why they call it a “Return” button. Or the reasoning behind some keyboards featuring Return and others labeling it Enter. Same thing happens if’n you hit either one of them.

Hard enough.

But what happens if you don’t jest know why whatever ain’t working ain’t working or you’re hurtin’ just perzactly where you’re hurtin’?

For instance, Mister Webbernet Smart Guy, I got a little twange, as opposed to what city folks call a twinge, just an inch or three from my kidney on the left side.

Unless I’m dragging a deer with my right arm, during which time it may well slide across in the other direction, nearer to what I’m assuming is a kidney over there. (Just how many kidneys we sposed to have, anyhow? Sometimes the twange stops dead in the middle!)

While it is quite possible that kidneys are miserably lazy little creatures who refuse to involve themselves in deer dragging, the thought also presented itself that maybe it warn’t no kidney a’tall. Or dragging of deer. So I sought out professional help.

From my son, Myles.

He graduated from college last month, so I figger he ought to be able to answer any question his simple-minded dad can come up with.

Like, for starters, what he got called by that feller who handed him the diploma. Ol’ boy just kept right on grinning as he blurted out, “Myles Jared Gay, Magna Cum Laude.” (That’s Spanish, y’see; or maybe French. I disremember.)

But Myles was showing all his teeth, too, so I reckoned I wasn’t going to have to break up no wrasslin’ match.

(That was gratifying, too, because Myles is 6-3 and severely left-handed. Any time I dove in to break him and his brother up, back when the two of them were 3 feet shorter, I’d usually leave wearing at least one left to the gourd. You never see it coming…)

But enough with the college stuff. It wasn’t intellectual enlightment I was seeking. Just his thumbs.

Hand that boy a cell phone, and he could type out War and Peace in 17 minutes. Using nothing but thumbs. Even more amazing, he knows RIGHT where to go to get answers. I might could find—in an eight-hour day—what he zips to in 30 seconds. And if you have kids who have phones, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

“So,” I was saying while pointing to the spot, “It hurts here. Or here. Or maybe here…”

“Quit dragging deer. What’s the 4-wheeler for, anyway?”

I can’t believe he’s so straightforward, to the point and plain spoken. Wherever did he get that from?

“You just twiddle your thumbs on that phone and answer the questions.”

“Okay. I’m saying it’s either sacroiliac joint dysfunction or lumbar disk herniation.”

I gave him The Look, which was summarily bounced away by the twinkle in his eyes.

“Says here we have the sacrum and the ilium… hmmmm… and we just might need a sacroiliac joint injection.”

“And you just might need casts on both your thumbs if you keep talking about needles and such…”

But he’s suddenly turned all serious on me.

“Just when did you notice the pain? First time, I mean?”

Rubbing my beard—it’s directly connected to the frontal lobe of my cerebrum—I thought back…

“Let’s see now, along about the first, no, it was the second week of November… I remember waking up and could hardly get out of bed. Just came on me all of a sudden.”

I could see the wheels spinning as he thought hard.

“You helped Dylan drag, tote and dress that big 10. Could that be it?”

Well now, it could have been… but that was a whole week earlier.

Then his face went all hilarious on me, and he cracked up to the point of hardly being able to breathe for five minutes. All I could do was wait until words came…

“November 9th. Three o’clock in the morning,” he croaked between guffaws, “you’re sprinting around the yard, rolling in the leaves, doing cartwheels, backflips, climbing trees and cackling at the top of your lungs. You fell out of two oaks and a dogwood. Even the squirrels were freaking out.

“Me and Dylan were trying to get a rope on you, dodging in and out of three police cars, two fire trucks and an ambulance—that you refused to ride in. And now you say you have a backache and don’t know where it came from?”

Let’s see… November 9th… What happened on… Oh yeah. Now I remember.

Order your copy of Daryl Gay’s books, “Rabbit Stompin’ And Other Homegrown Safari Tactics,” $19.95 plus $3 S&H and “Life On the Back Page,” $14.95 plus $3 S&H from www.darylgay.com or 16 Press, 219 Brookwood Drive, Dublin, GA, 31021.