I Don't Think Benjamin Button Had This Problem

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is hurtin' for certain today. And not in the hung-over way. She's a teetotaler, you know. But she's also aged. And decrepit. The rheumatism is strong in that one. Her bones tell her that a storm is moving in tonight. Uh huh. A snowstorm.

My hip joints feel like those of a Jane West doll whose manipulator got all energetic and turned her legs every which way but loose. Yep. Not just the knees are hurtin' today, but every joint that articulates. Knuckles, wrists, elbows, ankles. Head, shoulders, knees and toes. KNEES AND TOES! I'm sure my best old ex-teaching buddy Mabel would help me if she could. Maybe whip up a shark fin gumbo for my joint health. Right now all I feel like doing is moaning and dipping snuff and drawing my shawl closer around my shoulders while I wait for an ember to jump out of the fireplace and light my corncob pipe. Maybe I need a mustard plaster.

Farmer H is also achin'. Last night, he came down to my dark basement sitting area to watch a DVR of that Alaska survival show with the four teams of dudes (and one woman) who have 60 hours and two pounds of rice and beans to navigate unforgiving terrain and arrive at an extraction point or be left behind. When it was over, Farmer H started up the 13 steps on his hands and feet. Do you know how disturbing that is, seeing an overgrown man go up stairs like a toddler. He was kind of like a shell-less bloated crab, and kind of like a Grudge kind of horror movie entity. I forbade him to climb that way faster than a teenage boy can forbid his mom to say "all up in my bidness" and "redonkulous."

Now I feel almost sorry. I might have to climb the stairs that way tonight myself. Oh...my achin' hips.