Pain never hurt so good

One can only watch so many TiVo'd reruns of Dharma & Greg before wanting to grab the remote and shoving it through an ear - sideways - while gulping down a Hefty-sized bag of Cheetos (the Puffs because the crunchy Cheetos remind me of dried, orange boogers).

That's what my six weeks off the bad left wheel had left me - a weak ankle, orange fingers, a savant memory of Dharma quotes and an ass that has formed a butt pod into the leather couch. My sole form of exercise during the lay off had been chasing neighborhood kids (known around the Compound as toilet-paper, orange throwing hooligans) who venture across my garden of rocks and desert weeds in hopes that I'd be suckered into buying they're cookie dough/chocolate bars/3-foot bongs. I can't support these nose blowers pimping out foil-wrapped or tub-encased diabetes.

So I decided six weeks was enough. It was go time.

With my foot deflated from looking like a Macy's Parade float - "Look kids, it's your favorite cartoon character: Swollen, black-and-blue Foot. Yes Jimmy, that's toe jam hanging down." - I noticed my ass sticking harder and deeper to the couch. The couch was giving me signs, too, at least that's how I read the loud suction sound when I'd rise from the cocoon for my seventh beer half expecting to see the couch swallowing my spleen.

So, with thighs made of guacamole thighs and a belly with more jiggle than Charo, I hauled myself to the Medieval Torture Gym. Dr. cRipple gave me a clean bill of health but prescribed physical therapy which I partake in later today (be sure to check here for all the fun-filled details). I suspect I'll be the youngest dude in the joint, and the blue hairs will likely come at me like spider monkeys, to suck away my life force. I can see them lathered up in denture cream so when they do leech on to me I can't shake them off easily like their annoying mosquitos in a gerriatric jungle. Maybe that's Dr. cRipple's plan, lure me into an office with promises of a rejuvenated ankle that will help me leap medium-sized puddles in the work parking lot - pain free - when, in fact, he's using rabid seniors to feest on 30-something year olds so he can harvest ankle parts and build a marching army of cloned chin-whiskered grammas hell bent on stealing the world's supply of creamed corn because that's what the clones need for fuel.

Wow, I need to lay off that eighth cup of coffee in the morning.

Anyway, it was time to reaquiant myself with the masochistic pleasure of squat thrusts and ab crunches. With enough duct tape wrapped around my ankle to bound a kidnapped sorority, forcing me to walk with more of a limp than when I originally flattened my left wheel, I gimp my way into the gym and over to the stretching mats to see what muscles have shriveled up into a strips of jerky. I expected to hear rips, tears and snaps of dried meat and sinew with each stretch. I thought the three shredded ligaments would unhook from the bone and flap along the joint's side like strings tethering said black-and-blue foot balloon. Instead, it screamed: I love this shit! Give me more! I crunched the ab muscles and I heard them grunt "bring it on sissy boy. I can do these all day." I move over for pull ups and dips, no problem. "That's all you got, butt pincher? Take off the training wheels and do some work." Finally, I went for bicep curls and shoulder lifts and I made those bad boys my bitch. "Give me more weights," I yell across the gym. "What's this, these barbells only go up to 75 pounds. My right nut can lift 75 pounds. Give me MORE!"

I move from one machine to the next, lifting a high school trainer off the triceps machine because, dammit, my body's been waiting six weeks to feel some pain other than occasional kicks in the side from sleeping Wife. A muscle head sits down at my - My - lat machine, so I politely tell him to move it or I'll beat the crap out of his steroid supplier. He obliges because he knows that once I get done with the supplier, I'll turn my exercise-craved body on him and whoop his butt three ways from Sunday. Why? Because I can.

However, every happy story has some degree of hardship in it. That came when I hit the elliptical machine. Forty-five minutes? No problem. This machine will bend to my endorphin rush just like the squat thrust machine. I go to town, running like I'm being chased by angry villagers because I just defiled the one virgin in town, paying no heed to the thin lines of pain seeping up through the ankle. Ten minutes in, OK, I can do this all day and twice on Sunday (unless there's a Dodger game, then maybe only once and a half). Fifteen minutes, still feeling good, but crap why does my ankle feel like it sprung a slow leak? Twenty minutes in and it's like I'm running on a wheel with just one lug nut holding it together. By the 28th minute I decide to call it quits mainly because I thought my achilles tendon would shear off and roll halfway up to my leg and try to escape my body through some other out hole.

I leave the Medieval Torture Gym feeling somewhat good about myself, if for no other reason, I didn't have to watch another Dharma & Greg rerun.