I guess since you can walk to the bathroom to take a leak you think you’re all high and mighty, is it? Well not everybody can walk to the bathroom, buddy, so maybe you should just suck eggs.
… Wait, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be grumpy and cursin’ and everything, but holy cripes 
the pain I’ve been in this week.
I think I told yis last week how I found a trampoline in the heavy garbage, but when I got it home and set it up and jumped on it myself to test it out, I busted all the springs and went right through the damn thing. Landed right on my back, knocked the wind out of myself and bumped my head on one of the metal legs.
Now, I didn’t really notice any pain in my back right away, eh. All the bent and broken parts of the trampoline fell in on me when I went through it, so Cyril got them off me while Minnie ran over and sat me up a bit so she could pound on the back of my shoulders until I could breath again.
We got in the house and had some tea and after Cyril left, Minnie said, Are you sure you’re really all right?
And I said, all cocky – Minnie. it’s gonna take a lot more than a little trampoline accident to put me out of commission. You’re talkin’ to a fella who put a fish hook through his own cheek once. A fella who skinned his elbow off on a belt sander and crushed his left thumb with a claw hammer (I wiggled my lumpy thumb at her). Nooo, it’ll take a lot more than a little fall to do me in, dear. That was nothin’.
Minnie rolled her eyes and I went in the livin’ room and sat in my chair and flicked on the hockey game. Only, I couldn’t see half the screen because there was a big plant in my way.
What in the hell is this?
That’s my new rubber plant, Minnie says, stickin’ her head through the doorway. Joan spliced a piece off hers and transferred it to this nice big pot.
Oh for cripesake! I said. It’s in the way of the hockey game!
Well it’s gotta stay there, she said, so it can get some light. But I’ll turn it for ya.
So she comes over and turns the pot about half an inch. There, she says.
As soon as she left the room, I tried to stick my foot out and kick the pot a little further just to get it out of the way. But I couldn’t quite reach the damn thing, and when my leg swiped at it, I got this god-awful pain in my back. It was like somebody stuck a knife somewhere in the small of my back, but the pain shot up to my neck and down to my leg in both directions and I let out a loud groan.
Minnie stuck her head back in – What was that? she said.
Oh, just … buddy missed a wide open net, I said, noddin’ at the TV.
But the truth is, my back was shot. I could barely lean to one side or the other and there was no way I was gonna be able to get out of the chair on my own. So I did what anybody else would do – I pretended everything was fine.
Hours later, Minnie came in and read the flyers for a while, while I was watchin’ the second hockey game, and at one point she said, How’s your back doin’?
My whuh? I said, playin’ it cool. Oh, she’s fine. Kind of forgot about it to tell ya the truth, I said.
But oh my cripes, every time I breathed in or breathed out, the pain shot up and down my back like somebody was runnin’ a finger up and down a thing of piano keys.
Well, I think I’m gonna head to bed, she said, and leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek and then went up the stairs.
I needed to take a leak so bad my back teeth were floatin’. I had four cups of tea since I sat in the chair (Minnie’d just get me a refill every time she got one for herself). So I waited until I heard Minnie go through her nightly beauty routine in the bathroom and then shuffle across the hall to the bedroom before I made my move.
I knew there was no way I could get up out of the chair, let alone actually walk up the stairs, so what I did was, I took the back scratcher Minnie keeps on the coffee table and used it to hook the rim of the pot and drag the plant over.
Now, I’m not proud of this, but I what I did was, I kind of leaned on my side as best I could and took a great big leak right into the soil in the plant holder. The dumb thing’s in the way of the hockey game anyway, I figured, and even if Minnie figures out somebody peed in it, she’s almost definitely gonna blame the cats.
I woke up the next morning, still in the chair, when I heard Minnie on the phone with the doctor’s office.. She hung up and said – You got an appointment Friday morning at 10 o’clock for your back.
Whaddya talkin’ about? I said to her, right grumpy.
Just so you know for next time, she said, usually when the cats pee in a plant, they don’t leave a line of pee from the pot, across the carpet, up the side of the chair and across the leg of your joggin’ pants, Billy.
John McNeil 