Call The Waaaambulance!

Only Mrs. Hillbilly Mom could injure herself at the movies. I'm not talking about an errant step and a broken hip in the lobby. A chipped tooth on a popcorn kernel. A tongue sliced open on a sliver of ice in the keg of AMC soda (with refill!) that I took out a car title loan to afford. Not a paper cut from opening The Pony's Cookie Dough Bites. Not a wrenched ankle from a foot stuck to a sticky floor. Not bruised hip-fat from squeezing into a seat not made for Rubenesque women. Not even a broken eardrum from a toddler's screams. None of those commonplace, everyday injuries for Mrs. Hillbilly Mom.

I seem to have strained the musculature of my upper back.

You know the place where my angel wings would attach, if, perchance, I was issued a pair of angel wings, which we all know just ain't gonna happen? That's where I have a pain. It starts within an hour of crawling out of bed each morning. It grows more severe throughout the day. Upon plopping down in my basement recliner for TV watching, it abates an itty bitty bit. The pain is so intense that I pop ibuprofen like Skittles. Okay. Not like Skittles. I take one ibuprofen per day. And it is not chewy and fruity like a Skittle, which is really just a tiny bit of Starburst enrobed in a crunchy candy shell.

The initial injury occurred a week or so ago when The Pony and I went to see Prometheus. That darn movie was over two hours long. I was not comfortable in my theater seat. First of all, it seemed like I was sitting on the floor. Like when you're used to driving a large SUV like T-Hoe, and then somebody lets you tool around in his Corvette. And the back of the chair was not calibrated to Mrs. Hillbilly Mom comfort. It was ergonomically incorrect. I prefer to sit upright when I'm sitting. Unless I'm reclining, of course, which is different form sitting. Just ask any furniture salesman working for commission. So my torso leaned back, but my neck jutted forward to see the movie instead of the ceiling.

I tried to make myself more comfortable. Not by slipping into a negligee or anything like that. And not by leaning forward over the row of seats in front of me, which I do on occasion. But people were sitting in that row, and I didn't want to appear all stalkery. Besides, the seat was so low that I would have needed to cross my ankles and sit Native-American style. Which would have been quite uncomfortable, what with my two knee surgeries and me being not even 1/32 Cherokee. I put my hands behind my head for a while, fingers interlaced, like a young man contemplating draping his arm around a new girlfriend on their first date. But that provided little in the way of pain relief.

Yesterday's trip to see Madagascar 3 did not really have any effect on my ailment. The seats in that theater were fine. I feel neither an improvement in, nor a worsening of, my symptoms. My injury maintains its status quo.

It's really painful to get old.