The Rear End

Back Attack

something strange is happening at the base of my spine

Mike Paulus |

I was bending over when something bad happened. My wife and I were getting ready to leave the house, and I was bending over to pick up my kid and get her onto her feet – lifting her off the kitchen floor – and right when I thought she was upright, supporting herself, right when I thought everything was cool ... that’s when Satan himself showed up.

    Yes, Lucifer had decided that today was my day to suffer. He had crept into my house and, sometime between breakfast and potty time, the Prince of Darkness had infested my 4-year-old daughter’s very being to use as a weapon against me.

    So right when I was relaxing the muscles in my back because I thought my kid was standing on her two feet ... POW – she jerked up her little legs and fell like a sack of (pink, sparkly, adorable) hammers. I was still holding onto her, so I instinctively grabbed tight, and all of a sudden my spine was supporting her full weight, and WONK!

    Something very bad happened in my lower back. I’m still not sure what it was, but a muscle got pulled, or a disc got shifted, or my spleen got exploded, or maybe it was a deliciously evil combo platter of all three. At any rate, white light exploded before my eyeballs and all the Earth was flooded with a rushing, shrieking pain. Because of Satan.

    I managed to lower my daughter the floor without uttering every single swear word ever invented by humankind, and I got down to the manly business of curling up into a ball to weep silent tears. It felt like the Lumbar Fairy fluttered up behind me and smacked my lower spine with an old, rusty shovel.

    You might be asking yourself if this whole fiasco could possibly have been my fault. Couldn’t I have just lifted with my legs? Shut the hell up, it was Beelzebub, the Father of Lies.

And it wasn’t the first time he’d attacked my back. See, this has actually been happening for a year or two, ever since my first child – something I hoist on a daily basis – grew heavier than a (pink, sparkly, adorable) toaster oven. 


    Now, those of you who don’t believe in The Devil (which is the greatest trick he ever pulled) might assume there’s a more mundane explanation for the increasing regularity of my lower back pain. For example, maybe it has something to do with the many summers I spent as a landscaper, hefting heavy tools and rocks and such. Or maybe it has something to do with my lifetime of bad posture. Or maybe ... just maybe ... I’m getting older.

    For some guys over 30, a little back pain might send them into big fits of whiney depression because they’re getting sooo old, and they can’t live life the way they used to, and the good times are over, and they can’t close the bar at 2am anymore, and they should probably schedule a prostate exam and get life insurance.

    Not me. A little back pain sends me into big fits of whiney depression because I’m getting sooo unhealthy, and I can’t sit around and eat tacos the way I like to, and the times of slouchy posture are over, and I can’t lift without my legs anymore, and I should ... probably schedule a prostate exam and get life insurance.

    They only thing I’m really worried about is my health. I don’t want to be hobbling hovering around the old folks home spacepod, constantly whining about my poor back. And I’d really like to be able to lift my kids off the kitchen floor when we need to leave the house or lift a heavy log off their foot when I need to rescue them from a rampaging grizzly bear. You know, the basics.

    You know what they say about a healthy back, right? “A healthy back means you’re right on track.” OK, so I just made that up (and it’s copyrighted, Back Health of Association of America). But if there’s one way my age is connected to my back pain, it’s that I’m far more compelled to do something about it. I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t let this slide – it could get a lot more painful (and expensive) before I know it.

    So I guess you win, Devil. You’ve forced me to be responsible.