Walk Like An Egyptian

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This past weekend was a painful one. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice weekend when all is said and done. It was not unlike a lot of my weekends. There was the usual mixed bag of chores and errands complemented by some quality idle time. I enjoy and look forward to my weekends as much as any other sensible working stiff.
....Now, stiff was the operative word for my weekend. I could sit back and allow your collective imaginations take that line and run with it here, but I won't. Those of you who had just straightened up in your chairs in anticipation of some carnal escapades, will have to relax. That definition of stiff will not be explored here today. Perhaps Karyn will discuss that topic at "length" sometime. Stiff, as it will be used here, is in reference to another joint.
....My problem began sometime in the early evening of Saturday. We have been enduring a long period of humid hot weather in the Boston area. Being so close to the ocean, such stretches without rain is not the norm. Finally, on Saturday there was a sudden change in the barometric pressure. The cooler moist air from the ocean was on a collision course with a mass of hot dry air out of the Southwest.
....I used to think it comical when my grandparents would say, "It's going to rain. I can feel it in my bones!" But when it actually did rain after some of those "funny" remarks, we began to revere them. We thought that maybe gramps and granny possessed some magical powers.
....Thus it came to be Saturday night that I said to my daughter, "It's going to rain." She looked at me and said, "The weatherman said it was going to stay hot and there was no rain sight for the near future." Ten minutes later the air began to change as dark clouds began to fill the sky. In but only five minutes more, the first of the drops began falling. My daughter looked at me with a quizzical look on her face. I simply said, "I felt it in my bones!"
....Probably an aberration, but I survived a typical West Virginia childhood without a single broken bone in my body. That's not to say that I was sheltered. Hardly! I climbed trees and rode the branches down to the ground. I dove off bridges into rivers. I rode bicycles down those clearings where they run those high-tension lines. I have even rode rapids in an inner tube. Heck, those were the sissy stunts. We made our own skateboards in the late 50's, long before they became popular. The ones they have today are sissy boards compared to mine. Mine was made from the paddle end of a broken oar, onto which I had nailed the wheels and frame from roller skates. Can you say metal wheels with a thin layer of molded rubber. We didn't have those fancy sissy wheels they use today.
....Anyway, I was into my forties before I had my first broken bone. I cannot say how much it would've hurt when I was a kid, but to a 45-year-old man, a broken collar bone was quite painful! Then last summer, I fell on my side on some brick stairs, breaking a rib. Those of you who have suffered a broken rib know of what I speak. You can't laugh, you can't cough, you can't yawn, and dare I say it, you can't fart without pain shooting through your body. I prayed that I didn't get a case of hic-cups!
....Those two injuries, teamed up with a bothersome ankle and a bad knee, were the culprits who told me it was going to rain. They were my personal "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." It is only when the changes in the barometric pressure is sudden that the four of them saddle up and ride roughshod through my bones and joints.
....Sunday morning, the rain since past, was when I experienced the residuals of the Horsemen's ride. It wasn't the first time I had ever felt that stiff soreness. Indeed, I have woken up stiff on many of a morning. Tsk-tsk! Easy folks, I'm still not taking that bus.
....John, over at Romantic Ramblings, and I have noticed the use of song titles and lyrics in blogs lately. Driving home that point, both of us have recently taken that path. As you have no doubted noted by this title, I am using that theme again. This time, however, it wasn't deliberate on my part. It was actually the result of freaky kind of inspiration.
....As I said, Sunday morning was not the first time I woke up and could be seen trying to walk like a machine in want of oil to be applied in a few key joints. As is my usual Sunday morning routine, I was sitting in my recliner (Praise be to Lazy-Boy) waiting for the kettle to whistle for me from the kitchen. Now, in my area Sunday morning TV is not to die for, choice programming Spartan at best. As such, I have the Music Channels to entertain me.
....I had just stood up and was about to head to the kitchen to have a cup of Maxwell House Instant coffee. I stretched, yawned, and scratched in that classic pose of a waking man, which few people know was the the runner-up in the voting to the pose now used for the Heisman Trophy.
....It was then that I noticed, or rather heard, the song that was playing on the TV behind me. It was kind of comical when I realized that my pose and subsequent movements made it appear that I was literally trying to ... Walk Like an Egyptian!

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