This morning, I awoke to discover a fresh corporal surprise: My right index finger was so sore in the joint that I could not bend it--or even begin to bend it--without risking a scream. (Very unmanly.) This made my morning routines a bit ... different. (Just try it: curl up the index finger on your dominant hand and try doing without that nifty digit a few things that you normally do ... not that easy, is it?)
As the morning has worn along, it's become a bit more limber--though I still must pick up my mug of coffee with that naughty middle finger ("Tall Man," in the children's jingle) doing most of the heavy lifting.
Joyce suggested the soreness is due to my playing catch yesterday with my son and grandson down at their place (where we had a great Memorial Day picnic). I'm skeptical. I threw a lot of baseballs in my day and never had this particular soreness.
There's the slight possibility, too, that it's a sympathetic pain. Our grandson Carson (6) got his finger caught in a closing door yesterday and, being six, could freely and enthusiastically emit the screams that I suppressed this morning. (As I sit here, typing, my right index finger protesting, I envy the very young that option.)
Darker: a worsening of the slight arthritis I've had, exacerbated, perhaps, by typing much of the day and clicking Like on Facebook.
It was early in high school when I began noticing corporal changes that somehow occurred overnight. Many of those changes were facial and thus obvious to everyone. Like images on billboards. One dark morning my freshman year--a school day, of course--I awoke to discover I'd somehow acquired a horrible pimple on the left side of my nose. Vesuvian, actually.
That morning, I walked up the hill from our house to Hiram High School with my older brother, a senior, who looked at me and remarked: "You have a horrible pimple on the left side of your nose." The truth, I was reminded that day, is rarely pleasant to hear.
I tried to keep my right profile most prominent throughout the day, but that was a joke: The eyes of everyone found that horrible pimple on the left side of my nose, drawn to it like a Red Light Special at the local P-Mart. Only my "friends" said anything (nothing comforting, of course), but everyone looked. Even the teachers, who were quite good at controlling gag reflexes.
Little did I know what subsequent delights lay ahead of me. Gray hair. Nose hair! Gray nose hair! Worsening eyesight (I got glasses in my mid-30s). Facial spots that required the freezing spray wielded by a dermatologist. Facial spot that required a surgeon (skin cancer). Facial spots that we colloquially call "age spots." Knee pain that doesn't go away. A right eye that wouldn't close, announcing the arrival of Bell's palsy (some surgery ensued; I'm still not 100% after that--and never will be). Wattles. (If you don't know what these are, look it up--or wait: Your turn will come. It's quite a day when you realize you now share features with a turkey.)
Oh, the delights of aging.
I'm hoping this sore finger will soon chill. I kind of need the little guy, and if he's just aching for attention, well, he's gotten it. I hope an entire blog post devoted to him will mollify the surly fellow.
I just reached for my mug. Ouch!
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